The Road Not Taken
by etqd
Summary: They met in 1993, not 2003... RH AU
1. Prologue

Title:** The Road Not Taken  
**Author:**etqd  
**Summary:** They met in 1993, not 2003… AU…  
**Spoilers:** Eventually 5.05 at least if not the whole of series 5…  
**Warnings:** None  
**Disclaimer:** I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of Spooks. No copyright infringement is intended. Don't sue  
**A/N:** So yeah… the idea of this is basically all in the title and summary. Each part'll be set during an episode so eventually there will be spoilers for 5.05 but right now we're in 2.02… so we're at the Tom/Zoe/Danny/Sam stage… basically the setup of this part is – 1 scene AU Flashback, 1 scene AU 'scene from show' and 1 scene completely new… lets see how long I can actually stick to that plan shall we?**

**Anyway… on with the fic, hope you enjoy…**

**The Road Not Taken**

Prologue 

_2003._

_Thames House._

_London._

The door opened and the first thing Tom saw was the purple.

Lots and lots of purple.

Different shades, but still an overriding image of purple.

It was a cliché to say that the person behind the books and the purple, and indeed the purple books, was the person he least expected to see entering the briefing room. But that didn't make it any less true.

He'd barely opened his mouth to say her name when Harry interrupted him.

"This is Ruth Evershed, joining us from GCHQ. She's going to be handling intelligence analysis in this department. Sorely needed." Tom stared at his boss in confusion, not believing his relaxed attitude to the newcomer.

He looked quickly between the two of them, knowing he was impersonating a fish but unable to stop himself.

Ruth had obviously noticed his shock. "It's good to see you again Tom…" Although Harry was the epitome of calm, Ruth's nervousness was clear to see, right down to her almost stuttering. "You didn't know I was coming?"

Tom shook his head as turned back to look enquiringly at Harry. "Well…"

"Introductions later." Harry interrupted them. "Ruth, I need you up to speed on this."

"Am I late?" She asked, taking her seat and smiling surreptitiously at the rest of the rooms occupants. "Malcolm." She nodded at him in greeting.

"It's good to see you Ruth." Malcolm nodded in return before looking at Tom and raising his eyebrow slightly.

"We are briefing Ruth and reviewing the situation." Harry told them.

Tom took a moment to look at Zoë and Danny, who'd both clearly picked up on the tension in the room, before beginning his briefing, trying to clear his mind of the questions that were running through it.

Personal lives were secondary when you had Islamic extremists in a Birmingham mosque.

---

_1993._

_Thames House._

_London._

_Harry rolled his eyes at the suit before him, barely listening to her._

"_I know it's not your first choice as an assignment but…" She gestured to the file before them. The very thick file of a 23 year old student. "Have you read the file? The woman's IQ is in the 160s at the very least and her knowledge of Middle Eastern history and politics would be a must for any government department."_

_Harry shook his head. No matter how much they played up the significance it was still a glorified babysitting assignment. "Just because 6 are making a play doesn't mean we have to join in the fun."_

_The suit continued unabated. "The profile says she's a perfect sleeper… she'll rise to the top of whatever field she goes into… all we have to do is wait."_

"_I have more important work than sleeper recruitment."_

_The suit, realising she wasn't getting anywhere tried a different tactic. "It's Oxford. You could visit Catherine and Graham."_

"_I doubt Liz would even let me see them."_

_Harry let the silence stay between them and the suit leaned back in hers. Harry rightly guessed what was coming next._

"_This isn't an optional assignment. It's a must… and are you honestly telling me you don't want to get one over on 6?" _

_Harry smiled slightly… he hadn't predicted the last tactic. "The idea does have a certain appeal." He agreed. The only thing better than beating 6 was to stop a national emergency and there didn't appear to be anything brewing on that front in the immediate future._

"_Then go to Oxford, and snatch her out from Mr Mace's grasp. Lets show him that 5 has just as much appeal as the James Bonds of the intelligence world."_

_Harry nodded. "Do I at least get a smaller file?"_

_The DG smiled back at him, reaching into hers desk draw for a videocassette. "Oh you'll get more than that. Here's a tape of her most recent University Challenge episode. Miss Evershed is brilliant. I'd read up on your Homer, you'll need something to get her attention."_

---

As soon as they were out of the briefing room the question was asked. He wasn't surprised that it was Danny. He was even less surprised that Zoë was right beside him to back him up. To be nosy.

"What was that about in there?"

Tom looked at Malcolm, who simply shook his head at the unasked question. He obviously hadn't known before the briefing either.

Tom looked back at his colleagues. "What do you mean?"

"Did you work together before? Because I don't think I've ever seen you look that shocked." Zoë asked, vaguely curious but not as much as he'd expected. That would change soon enough.

"I have never worked with Ruth Evershed." Tom answered honestly before walking away from them.

"Oh come on…" Annoyance was clear in Danny's tone. He hated being kept out of the loop. "Malcolm?"

He heard Malcolm's footsteps close behind, along with his just as honest but more reasonable reply.

"The last time we met her surname was Pearce."

---


	2. Angels With Dirty Faces

"_Whadda ya hear! Whadda ya say!"  
_**Rocky Sullivan** (**James Cagney) - Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)**

**---**

**Part 1 - ****_Angels with Dirty Faces_**

**---**

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

Tom closed the door behind them and turned quickly to Malcolm.

"Another unexpected development." Malcolm stated simply.

Tom nodded in agreement, "Where's Colin?"

"On surveillance. Something particularly uninteresting I'm told." Malcolm paused. "Definitely less interesting than developments here." He added.

Tom could do nothing but nod his head in agreement. "This was covert, even for Harry."

"When did you see her last?" Malcolm asked, curious. "Because all I knew was that she was working for GCHQ again."

"Over a year at least. While Harry was still on leave." Tom paused choosing his next words carefully. "I never thought I'd see them together again."

"Harry knew she was coming." Malcolm pointed out, somewhat unnecessarily.

"He had to approve the secondment." Tom put his hand to his forehead and rubbed.

"What do you want to do?"

"She didn't have to come and he didn't have to take her. But he did, whatever the reasons." Tom let himself smile slightly. "If nothing else we've got one the best analysts around."

Malcolm smiled in return. "She looked well, didn't she?"

"Very." Tom agreed allowing himself a moment to envisage her. He swallowed, shaking the memories from his mind. "When this is over I'll speak to him. Until then we keep quiet."

Malcolm looked slightly concerned. "Do you really think that'll stop them?"

Tom was under no illusions. "No. But it'll make me feel better when they find out the truth."

**---**

_1993.  
__St Cross Rd.  
__Oxford._

_It was at moments like this Harry Pearce wondered just one thing._

_Why?_

_Why was he sat in a cold Oxford bed-sit when he could have been breaking an IRA cell in Northern Ireland? He'd actually have rather been watching daytime television than reading surveillance reports of an above average student._

_He did admit, if only to himself, that the recruitment itself was almost certain to be extremely useful, but that didn't mean someone who was so close to becoming section head should be stuck doing said recruitment._

_The only thing that stopped the assignment from being a complete bore was that it was fast becoming almost a race between him and Oliver._

_The surveillance before him showed that not only was Mace one step ahead (by making contact with the subject) but also that he was still using the old blackmail technique to try and persuade recruits. But Harry suspected that there wasn't much of anything you could bribe Ruth Evershed with, apart from her extreme level of overdue library books._

_Which was why Harry had chosen a different tactic. A more direct tactic._

_It was time to make things a little more interesting._

**---**

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

She was essentially grappling with a lamp as they watched her.

"What do you think happened?" Zoë asked them as Sam leaned over Danny's desk, resting her head on her hand.

"Affair probably. Usually is." Danny replied, looking up from his keyboard.

Zoë shook her head. "If you'd cheated… or been cheated on would you work together? 'Cause I wouldn't."

"Me neither." Sam agreed.

Danny couldn't help but see their point to. "I suppose… but… this is Harry we're talking about, we know almost nothing about his personal life anyway."

"Apart from the fact that he was… or maybe still is married."

"Apart from that." Danny conceded.

"But what about her?" She gestured with her head towards Ruth. "What do you think?"

"Bonkers." Danny told her simply.

"But brilliant." Zoë whispered softly.

Sam leaned in closer to Danny. "Do you think I'll be bonkers when I'm older?"

"Aren't you now?" He replied dryly.

Sam smiled flirtatiously. "Could be."

Zoë had just opened her mouth to interrupt them when Ruth's voice rang out through the grid.

"Oh THING!" She shouted at the object now lying broken in her hands.

"Destructive as always." Tom's wafted across the room and all three of them turned towards the pair.

Ruth dropped the broken lamp to the floor. "Thing! I swear there's a conspiracy against me… stupid inanimate objects are determined to drive me crazy!"

The others watched as Tom started to smile. "Someone should alert MI5." He told her dryly. "But you're settling in okay?"

"Everything's fine. I don't know what I was expecting but the grid isn't quite how I'd imagined." She smiled brightly, looking around with excitement. "But it's just as exciting… actually I've been looking into this Rachid fellow and…"

Ruth went off into a spiel that Danny had trouble keeping up with, instead he looked over at Zoë. "Briefing?"

Zoë nodded. "Briefing."

**---**

_1993.  
__University Parks.  
__Oxford._

_She didn't look up when he sat down beside her. He might have found that slightly suspicious if he hadn't watched her sit on the same bench at the same time everyday and read a book. It was a different book each time. That either meant she was an incredibly quick reader or she had an awful social life. _

_She didn't notice anything. Or at least she appeared not to. He hadn't had a chance to study her sufficiently to get a complete picture of her, to read her as clearly as she was reading that book. _

_His tactic had changed as soon as he'd spotted Oliver on the surveillance footage._

_He was about to open his mouth and quote a passage of War and Peace when she surprised him._

"_There are 32 benches in this park." She told him calmly, not even glancing at him as he looked at her in surprise._

"_And what a lovely park it is." He replied simply, resisting the sudden urge he had to grin._

"_At least 25 of them are free."_

"_But obviously this is the best one."_

_He could tell she was holding back a smile. "You're either a weirdo or the second government agent I've had threaten me today."_

_He let his lips move upwards slightly. "What's to say I'm not both Miss Evershed?" He turned to face her fully and waited for her to do the same. She didn't immediately and he couldn't help but analyse why._

"_The other one tried to get me to sign the official secrets act, aren't you going to bother?"_

"_I don't think there's any need." He told her simply. "Our biggest asset is that generally people are more likely to believe that someone's lost their marbles than that they've been recruited by the services."_

_She shut her book. The pages closed heavily but barely sounded. "Personally when someone walks up to you in a public library and tells you that if you sign a form he'll give you a gun and turn you into an agent for Her Majesty's Secret Service I'm inclined to call a doctor." She turned to look at him and he could tell that she wasn't nearly as calm as she was trying to appear. It made him smile. "Especially if they then insinuate that if you don't sign their form they'll destroy your life."_

"_We don't work for the same people." Harry told her simply._

_She shook her head, an ironic smile lighting her pretty face. "Is that supposed to reassure me?"_

"_Yes."_

"_It doesn't." She informed him, her head moving endearingly as she tried hard to appear calm. _

"_Well I apologise for that." Harry told her honestly. "So you turned him down?"_

_The scared smile grew. "I have no idea what made you people think that I could possibly be a spy but you're very wrong."_

"_Well that does happen on occasions." Harry admitted._

"_When my stepfather tried to get me to shoot a rabbit I cried for an hour." She tried to reason with him. _

"_I think you've got a have diluted view of us. Probably unduly influenced by a film franchise and an overzealous agent."_

"_I'm a terrible liar." She tried again._

"_You had excellent reviews for your sixth form play."_

_Her mouth dropped open in shock and her voice shook. "Have you been watching me for that long?"_

_Harry felt himself smile again at her naivety. "We have excellent information gatherers."_

_She began to breath deeper. "I think this is ridiculous."_

"_Most people do." He agreed. "But if you come with me I'll tell you what we want you to do." He leaned over to her side of the bench and looked directly into her eyes to try and reassure her. "Your curious about the why's and the how's, aren't you? You want to know 'why you?'… and I'll tell you anything I can."_

"_Somewhere public." She insisted, her reluctance wavering._

"_Anywhere you want." _

"_Oh okay." She swallowed heavily. "What's your name?"_

_"Jerry." He resisted telling her the surname. Somehow he knew she'd get Malcolm's reference and he didn't fancy a Cary Grant movie marathon at that moment. Or any moment._

_"I'm Ruth. But you already knew that, didn't you?"_

_Harry smiled. "Why don't I proposition you somewhere warmer?"_

**---**

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

Zoë threw her pen across the desk in frustration. "Nest of Angels." She whispered to herself.

For a moment all four of them were silent and still, contemplating how to proceed.

Their reverie was interrupted by a knock to the glass window and Zoë jumped slightly in her seat from the sudden noise. She caught a very vague glimpse of Ruth at the window and maybe a photo or a picture.

Then, a few seconds later Ruth literally burst into the room. Excited didn't even begin to describe it.

She moved quickly towards Harry, handing him the photo. She smiled like a pixie at him. "This happened yesterday. A tramp off the street it seemed, making trouble at New Scotland Yard. I've just twigged."

Harry looked closely at the picture of the unknown man. "Twigged what?" He asked her as she handed the others photo's.

Ruth grinned even more. "At GCHQ, we picked up a signal about an Algerian. I've hacked into the aliens data base of the Secretariat General de La Defense Nationale."

Harry didn't even try to hide the smile from his face. "You're barely here a day and you hacked into the French Security Service?"

Ruth shrugged. "They do it to us we do it to them."

Harry shook his head. "You can hack into government databases and yet you never could change the ring tone on your phone."

Ruth smiled warmly at him. "I liked the original."

Danny looked at his flat mate. _No affair._ He mouthed to her. Zoë nodded her head in agreement. Tom took note of the silent communication and picked up on of the papers Ruth had dropped onto the desk.

"Muhammad Ibhn Khaldun." Tom read aloud.

Ruth looked away from Harry and her expression changed from happy to sad in a moment. "Oh poor man, what a terrible story."

As Ruth retold the story of Khaldun's misfortune Danny looked back to Zoë.

"Emphasis on the brilliant." He whispered to her simply.

Zoë agreed completely.

**---**

**Feedback would be adored. **


	3. Shadow of a Doubt

_I never make up anything. I get everything from my books. They're all true.  
_**Ann Newton (****Edna May Wonacott), Shadow of a Doubt (1943)**

---

**Part 2 – _Shadow of a Doubt_**

---

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London._

Harry leaned back onto his desk as he spoke. "It wasn't your fault Tom, Khaldun made his own choice."

"I knew he couldn't talk that boy round. I should've tried harder to get him away. Forced him away from the boy."

"If's. Why's. Maybe's. We live with it and move on."

Tom nodded. "Of course." Tom stood.

"Is there a problem?"

"Far from it. She's as brilliant as always. She's been a lot of help with the Pakistan situation, Anthony and Cleopatra have found her intel extremely useful."

"So?"

"Just if you need someone to talk to…"

Harry interrupted him before he could finish. "Thanks for the offer."

Tom nodded in reply and opened his mouth to speak when suddenly the lights went off. "What the…?"

"Trouble."

_---_

_1993  
__Turf Tavern  
__Oxford_

"_A sleeper agent?" She asked, slightly unimpressed._

_Harry leant across the table towards her. "You'd have a normal life. But, at some point in the future you may be useful to us. When that time comes, if it does, then we'll activate you."_

"_So I'm the turkey and you decide how long to let me cook before exploding the oven?" She asked him sarcastically, before glancing around the room as if she was searching for a person with 'Hit Man' stamped on his forehead. Harry tried not to smile at how adorably naïve she was being. They'd never carry out a hit in a public house, no matter how empty it was on a Saturday afternoon._

"_Not exactly." He told her, deciding that calling somebody adorably naïve after only knowing her an hour was a bad idea._

"_What will you do if I say no?" She was playing with a napkin in an attempt to keep her hands from shaking._

"_Nothing." Which was probably a lie, Harry wasn't sure but he did suspect that 6 would stop at nothing to acquire her. He couldn't help but suspect there was more going on than a simple agent race. _

"_Do you really expect me to believe that?!" She told him, incredulous._

"_This isn't communist Russia Miss Evershed_._ You have a choice."_

"_The other one didn't make it seem that way." She reminded him._

"_We work for different people."_

"_And I'm not some kind of radical anyway. I can't see how I'll be of any use to any of you lot at any point in the future."_

"_Then you won't have to worry, will you?" Harry replied easily._

_She shook her head. "Oh but I will. Everyday. Every single day for the rest of my life I'll be wondering when you'll come out of the woodwork and wreck life." Ruth smiled sardonically. "And don't try and tell me I'd be helping my country because this is starting to sound more and more iffy."_

"_They only agenda I have is to insure that a highly intelligent you lady ends up on our side."_

"_I'm not easily flattered."_

_Harry shook his head. "It's not flattery if it's true. You speak 6 foreign languages, you've written several papers on foreign policies and your PHd is going faster than you or anyone else had anticipated."_

_Ruth frowned at him, shaking her head slightly. "I'm living in 1984." She whispered under her breath._

"_I never liked Winston Smith. Not in the book. Not in the movie. Not even Peter Cushing." Harry told her, letting himself enjoy the smile she gave him._

"'_This is our land. A land of peace and plenty.'" She quoted softly._

"_I admit it's an invasion of privacy Miss Evershed. But we do it for the greater good and all this proves is that you have the ability to be of great use to us."_

_She looked up at him, staring at him in a way that he found very disconcerting. It was almost like those grey eyes could see into his very soul. "My PHd's going faster than expected because the sooner it's finished the better." She admitted before smiling slightly. "I was under the mistaken impression that it wouldn't be the most excruciatingly boring subject I've ever studied."_

"_I think you underestimate yourself Miss Evershed." Harry told her, speaking with complete honesty for the first time. _

"_It's Ruth."_

"_Ruth." Harry returned, lifting the glass to his lips to hide his smile._

---

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London._

Harry couldn't fail to notice that she still paced the same. A strange thing to notice but Ruth had always paced strangely. Five was her limit generally. Seven if it was a particularly stressful situation. She was pacing seven right now.

Seven, turn, seven, back.

He'd seen her pace seven times so often it was almost physically painful.

Memories of those waiting rooms were not what he needed to be thinking about. Especially not at a time like this.

He cleared his throat before he spoke again. "So let me understand this, at 11.27 today, someone thrust a hand up our skirt. Our Thames House mainframe was hacked into from a remote site."

"Correct. Operating systems were contaminated in seconds." Tom confirmed. "Archive files were swiped at the rate of a dozen a second. We traced them to a community centre in Stoke Newington."

Danny continued. "We attempted to break the connection. Triggered a high frequency pulse that scrambled the offending PC and left my fillings aching like hell."

"Meanwhile, we were sent this." He gestured to the projection on the wall.

Zoë read it allowed. "Zeus spoke and nodded with his darkish brows and immortal locks fell forward from the lord's deathless head, and he made great Olympus tremble."

Ruth, as he'd expected continued. She'd stopped pacing and for that he was thankful. "The Iliad. Homer. 8th century BC. The quote's a threat. Olympus was the seat of power in ancient Greece. Here, it trembles. So, whoever they are, they want to bring us down."

Harry moved behind her. "A little inflammatory."

Ruth shook her head incredulously. "Inflammatory! You said it yourself, we've just been raped!"

"No… no, Harry said we were groped. We weren't penetrated. MI5 has a website just like Marks and Spencer or the Natural History Museum. These hackers broke in via that website. But they got nowhere near the Inner Sanctum. It's like demonstrators breaking into Parliament and letting off fireworks. Alarming but hardly a threat to the constitution." Tom told her and she stared him down. It was the kind of stare he'd seen a thousand times and it made him want to smile with nostalgia. He didn't.

"I think you should work on that Homeric quote Ruth. See what connections you can make. Yeah?" Harry told her simply. For a moment he was sure she would argue with him and found himself a little disappointed when she simply took a breath and strode out. Simply for Ruth's benefit he continued to the others. "You three stay. I want to know what went wrong out there today." When the door closed he started to gesture wildly, glancing over his shoulder quickly to judge her position. "Right I'm giving you a sound grilling. Keep looking crest-fallen. Tell me when she's gone."

Zoë looked through the window. "She's gone."

Harry lowered his arms and sighed. "Ruth works for GCHQ. As far as she is concerned this isn't a crisis, just a glitch."

"And is it just a glitch?"

"Course not! It's a bloody crisis! See it as a first-strike at our operating systems. Someone's going to war.

"Do you think she'll go squealing to the top?" Danny asked him directly but Harry could see the look Zoë was giving both of them. The gossip had already started, not that he was surprised.

"She has every right. But I want to handle this at shop-floor level. Otherwise the brass will be crawling all over us. I'll keep Ruth busy here."

"Harry… we're talking about Ruth here. She wouldn't do that."

"Don't underestimate her Tom, you wouldn't be the first to make that mistake." Tom didn't reply, instead he nodded simply. "Now if these hackers get in again…" He stopped, looking at their faces and sighing as he read them like a book. "Right. Tell me."

_---_

_1993  
Merton Street_  
_Oxford_

_He banged his fist three times against the door to the white van and waited impatiently for it to open._

_Simon smiled in his annoyingly toothy way as the door swung open. "How's it going?"_

"_Shouldn't I be asking you that?" Harry asked, climbing inside and closing the door behind himself._

_Simon shrugged. "Nothing to report. Since your little tête-à-tête yesterday she's been quiet. No phone calls, one visitor a Lisa Murphy… but nothing more than that." He took in Harry's pensive gaze as he watched the footage of her front door. "What are you thinking?"_

"_Well she's very intelligent, if a little naïve. Good desk spook material definitely. Maybe more." _

_Simon let out a slight chuckle. "Compliments from Harry Pearce? Will wonders never cease. I'll call Malcolm with the news."_

_Harry ignored him, as he usually did, and pursed his lips in concentration. "What are they seeing that I'm not?" He asked himself quietly._

"_What?"_

_Harry looked back at Simon, as if remembering that he wasn't alone. "Oliver's here. That we know. He threatened her. Wrong move but hardly surprising. He hasn't taken it any further though."_

"_Their meeting was only two days ago." Simon reminded him._

"_Oliver usually moves faster." Harry stated simply._

_Simon shrugged. "You say she's good though… maybe he's changing his game plan?"_

"_I wouldn't be surprised if she had the brain capacity of a small planet. Maybe even a large one. But that's not enough to hold Mace's interest." He kept quiet for a moment, staring at the images, waiting for the truth to suddenly find him. _

_His colleague interrupted his thoughts. "What do you want me to do?"_

_Harry considered his options, but there was only one route that seemed appropriate. "Tail him." Knowing Simon was about to voice his doubts about watching a fellow agent Harry continued unabated. "I'll deal with the DG. But something more is happening here and I need to find out what Six are up to."_

"_Okay." Simon accepted. "What about you?"_

"_Ruth's in something, I can feel it. So while you look after Mace I'll look after her. 24 hour situation reports." He added, more for Simon's benefit than his own._

_Later on Harry would contemplate Simon's silence. He didn't mention that Harry was now on first name basis with potential sleeper. But Harry didn't doubt that he'd noticed and he doubted that was a good thing._

_---_

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London._

Sam grinned at Danny and Zoë, her hands behind her back as she leaned over Zoë's desk. "Guess what I've got…"

She whipped the file from behind her and dropped it onto the desk. Zoë looked intrigued. "What is it?"

Sam's grin widened. "Ruth told me I needed to start making contacts and one of the guy's from basic got stuck working in the record room." She raised her eyebrows.

"You stole somebody's personnel file?" Danny shook his head, glancing around the almost deserted office. "I'd get that back upstairs before anyone catches you."

"It's Ruth's." She told them simply, knowing that would catch their attention.

Zoë's attention was obviously caught as she moved the file closer to her and started to open it. "Let's have a quick look."

"Zoë!"

Zoë leaned forward in her seat. "Are you telling me you're not yearning for the juicy details to?"

Danny shook his head, turning back to his computer. "I am not getting involved in this."

"Fine." Zoë told him as she opened the file, Sam leaning over her shoulder.

"Ruth Evershed, born 1970. One step-brother. Father deceased." Sam read just loud enough for the three of them to hear. "Husband Henry Pearce, separated…" She trailed off and Zoë looked directly at her, she'd obviously reached the same point. "Shit." She said simply.

Danny looked back at them, unimpressed. "What is it?"

Zoë and Sam both looked up at him. Zoë spoke even softer than before. "One son, James Pearce. _Deceased_."

Before they could even let the information sink in they were interrupted.

"What have you got there?" He tried to look over Sam's shoulder but she turned quickly and Zoë tried to cover the evidence. She failed as Tom quickly grabbed it from her hands and smirked at them. "Must be juicy. Is it that French ambassador again?" He looked at them one by one, confused by their non-reactions. Only then did he actually look at the file he was holding. His demeanour changed in an instant from humour to anger. "Outside. Now." He moved quickly for the pods, the others following behind him in silence.

---


	4. Dark Victory

_I think I'll have a large order of prognosis negative._  
**- Judith Traherne (Bette Davis), Dark Victory (1939)**

---

**Part 3 – _Dark Victory_**

---

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London._

Tom leant over the barrier and looked into the darkened river. The streetlights barely illuminated their position.

"Who took it?"

There was silence for a moment before Sam spoke. "I did."

"How?" He asked, even though he didn't really care. That wasn't the important thing.

She hesitated before answering. "Ruth told me I needed to make contacts. He got it for me."

"And the first thing you asked of him was to steal Ruth's file!?" Tom shook his head, not even surprised.

"I just thought it would be a bit of fun." Sam weakly justified.

Tom shook his head. "Those files contain personal information. They contain our lives. You can't mess with people's lives for a _bit of fun_."

Danny stepped toward him. "We didn't know…"

"You didn't need to." Tom interrupted him, turning towards them and taking a deep breath. "What I'm about to tell you is to be treated as high level confidential information. It is not for idle gossip. Is that clear?" He stated firmly, the streetlights only masking half is face yet showing his disappointment clearly.

"Of course." Zoë assured him, the others nodding.

"Colin and Malcolm know because they were already in the section, but no one else is to. They don't need to."

"We understand." Danny told him.

Tom sighed heavily. "Ruth and Harry met when she was at Oxford. They got married and they had a son. _Jamie_. Cute little boy with Ruth's nose and a killer smile from birth." He smiled nostalgically, closing his eyes. "Probably destined to be the best spook of all time… with Ruth's brain and Harry's… know how." He breathed deeply. "But Jamie got sick; leukaemia. Acute Lymphatic Leukaemia. It spread to his spinal cord and he died just before his sixth birthday. Nobody's _fault_, no one to _blame_. Just your regular tragedy. It broke Ruth and Harry though; they separated."

There was silence before Zoë spoke up. "So why's she here now?"

Tom smiled genuine smile. "Ruth is brilliant, there's no doubt about that. She's the best analyst GCHQ had to offer and Harry only takes the best. No matter what history they have."

There was another uncomfortable silence before Sam spoke. "We thought maybe there was an affair or…"

Tom shook his head dismissively. "If you'd seen them together, you would never have thought it would come to this."

"What do you want us to do?" Danny asked.

"You do nothing. You respect their privacy. You don't talk about this, especially not to them. If… and this is a very unlikely 'if', either of them ever talk about it, you will be as sympathetic as possible. There will be no pointless gossip in this team undermining our work."

---

_1993.  
Corpus Christi College.  
Oxford._

_A familiar shadow fell over her table but she didn't look up. Instead, she kept her focus on the text before her, biting down on her pencil in concentration._

_"What's his name?" The shadow asked her._

_She still didn't look up. "What are you talking about?"_

_"You had lunch with a man in the pub. Oh there's intrigue in the halls!" Lucy over exaggerated the words as she dropped her bag onto the table and slouched into the nearest chair. Why Lucy wasn't taking drama was one of the last great mysteries, especially as she was probably the least suitable candidate for law. Ever._

_"Friend of the family." She lied, a little too easily._

_"Quite dishy for an oldie." Lucy fished._

_Ruth took the bate and looked up. "He's not that old!"_

_Lucy grinned, looking like an evil megalomaniac. "Ah ha!"_

_Ruth shook her head dismissively. "I'm busy."_

_Lucy rolled her head from side to side. "Oh come on… things are so boring round here."_

_"Don't you have a lecture to be at?"_

_"Nope. What about you?" She reached across the table and grabbed one of the many books before Ruth could stop her. She read the title, a frown forming on her face. "What does 20th Century Espionage have to do with… well, anything other than 20th Century Espionage?" She asked, confused. "It's not your usual fare."_

_Ruth grabbed the book and dropped it back onto the pile. One of the piles. "Research." She said simply._

_Lucy leaned forward. "For what? Can I help?"_

_"You don't even know what I'm researching." Ruth reminded her._

_Lucy smiled. It was deceptively sweet. "I will when you tell me."_

_They stared at each other for a moment. Well, Ruth glared, and Lucy smiled smugly. Then Ruth started to smile and Lucy felt a little less surefooted. "If you don't leave me alone right now I'm telling Just where you really were two weeks ago."_

_Lucy's mouth dropped open in shock. "You wouldn't."_

_Ruth shrugged and used her barely tested poker face. "Do you want to try me?"_

_Lucy sighed in defeat. "Fine. I'm on duty in ten minutes anyway."_

_"That's good." She ripped off a page from her pad and began to write._

_"That's good?" Lucy asked, standing and looking slightly confused._

_Ruth stopped writing and passed the paper to her friend. "I need those books." She said simply._

_Lucy looked at the list and then at Ruth, unconvinced. "For research?"_

_Ruth smiled back, this time slightly sheepish. "Oh and 1984. Again. Mines at my mothers and I really don't want to chance that anytime this century."_

---

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London._

"'Zeus spoke and nodded with his darkish brow.'" She quoted at him. No prologue, just straight to the main act, he'd forgotten that about her.

"What?" Harry asked, confusion written on his face.

Ruth continued, quickly and precisely. "In the original translation it's 'The son of Cronus spoke and nodded with his darkish brow.' Zeus was the son of Cronus. Cronus was a powerful Titan but his son became even more powerful." Ruth smiled tightly at him. "It's a reference to a powerful child." She theorised.

Harry shook his head in disbelief. "And there I was getting worried."

But Ruth wasn't finished. "Sometimes you just need one more factor. I thought, seeing as you were interested in this boy…" She paused for a combination of breath and dramatic licence. "Look put it all together… Greece, Titan's, Cronus spiders… fathers and sons. Put the lot of it together and you get something." She paused again.

"What?" Harry asked her.

"I knew I recognised the face, but it was along time ago and I didn't make the connection." She passed a tape to Harry. "It's an old surveillance recording I had them send up from the registry. It's from a Greek farmhouse 18 months ago. A mountain place near the Albanian border called _Titans_ reach." Harry closed his eyes as the story seeped through his memory banks. "Noah Gleeson."

"Son of Victor Gleeson."

Ruth nodded solemnly. "The boy genius."

"The broken boy genius." Harry corrected.

---

_1993.  
Merton Street.  
Oxford._

_He could have left 20 minutes ago._

_He should have left 15 minutes ago._

_He definitely should have left before they fell (incredibly easily) into an argument about Ernst Lubitsch._

_He wasn't exactly sure how the conversation got to the German filmmaker from Oliver Mace, but Harry recalled it going something like this._

_"Any contact?"_

_"I'm being followed… well maybe I am. I think I'm being followed… I feel like I'm being followed. Am I being paranoid?" She'd spoken fast._

_He hadn't answered that. "Have you made a decision?"_

_"No. I haven't had a lot of time to concentrate when I've been completely terrified for the past three days."_

_They'd passed by a film poster. He couldn't recall the film anymore. "You need to relax, go to the cinema." He'd told her, and immediately regretted it._

_"Right because I'd feel very safe in a darkened room right now." He'd smiled at her sarcasm. "Besides it's all tosh. I'll go home and watch To Be or Not To Be, cause right now I feel like I'm in Nazi Germany."_

_"I didn't mean that type of film."_

_"It's a comedy." She'd retorted and he's noticed that she looked very sweet when she was confused._

_"It's a Lubitsch film."_

_She'd shrugged. "I always liked Lubitsch."_

_Which was how he'd found himself replying… "I don't think something's a comedy if you don't laugh!"_

_"They're not just comedies." Ruth replied. "Look at Ninotchka… Garbo's almost as good as in 'Queen Christina'."_

_He smiled at her enthusiasm. But that didn't make her right. "Do you ever sleep?" He asked her and enjoyed the smile she replied with._

_"My father loved books, my mother loved old films. He died when I was young but my mother enjoys telling me how alike we are. The good and the bad."_

_"He was doctor, wasn't he?"_

_"GP."_

_"Mine was a banker." He didn't consider until after he'd said it that 'Jerry's' father wasn't a banker. He'd slipped, very unusual._

_"Sounds… interesting."_

_Harry's smile grew. "Really wasn't."_

_"Well…" She stopped at the college entrance and he faced her. She was white and her hands were shaking slightly._

_"Everything will be fine. I'll look after you."_

_"I'm obviously not cut out for this… maybe they'll see that? You too?"_

_Harry took no pleasure in wiping the hopeful smile from her face. "It's too late for that."_

_"I don't know who to trust." She told him honestly._

_"You can trust me Ruth, but I'd say that either way, wouldn't I?" He raised his eyebrows and was rewarded with a smile that was slightly less tense. But only slightly. They looked at each other for a long moment before Harry took a step back and looked down at her bag. "What are you reading today?"_

_"1984."_

_"Ah… looking to change my opinion?"_

_Ruth shrugged her shoulders. "Or maybe mine. I like him." She added, her smile growing as Harry shook his head._

_"Really?"_

_She looked slightly sheepish. "Sorry."_

_"Ah well… can't win everyone."_

_Ruth's mouth opened in surprise. "You haven't won any!"_

_"Lubitsch is not funny."_

_"You need to see Shop Around the Corner."_

_"That's a comedy?" He asked her sceptically._

_Ruth paused. "… sort of." She replied, biting her lip to stop the grin her knew was about to form._

_"Until we meet again… I'll look out for the Corner Shop thing." He patted her shoulder and quickly turned. He was looking forward to seeing her again._

_That in itself was a bigger problem than anything Six could throw at him._

---

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London._

"She did well, didn't she?" Harry asked, looking out over the grid. His drawn to one empty desk in particular.

"It was useful information." Tom confirmed. "Gave us insight into Noah's state of mind." He added.

"Yes." Harry pursed his lips in contemplation.

"Why don't you trust her?" Tom wondered.

Harry smirked. "Oh I trust Ruth. I'd trust Ruth with my life… but I don't underestimate her and I definitely don't trust the people who sent her here. That would be naïve."

"I don't understand." Tom told him, moving to stand beside his superior.

"After 9/11 Six wanted Ruth. Again." Harry explained. "GCHQ turned them down, didn't want to lose one of their best operatives. But two years later they've let her come to five… with no agenda? She's one of their best and brightest, they wouldn't let her come without some kind of compensation, no matter how many transfer requests she made."

Tom nodded in understanding. "They want to exploit your relationship." He stated simply.

Harry agreed. "Trying to, probably. We'll let things develop naturally."

"Okay."

"Would be a shame to lose her though." Harry's smile grew. "She's so worried about being sent back she's doing the work of three analysts and you know how keen the DG is on cost cutting."

---


	5. The Roaring Twenties

_"That guys a sucker. I don't trust any of my friends." _– George Halley  
_"The feeling's mutual, George. They don't trust you either."_ – Panama Smith

**- Humphrey Bogart & Gladys George, ****The Roaring Twenties (1939)**

**---**

**Part 4** - **_The Roaring Twenties_**

---

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London._

Danny threw his hands up in the air waiting to be worshipped for his brilliance.

"What just happened?" Tom asked, moving to stand beside the grinning Ruth.

"Danny just made fifty grand." Tom looked at her in surprise. "Well he would have if we'd actually be trading." She corrected, still grinning impishly.

Tom gestured towards the monitor, ignoring Danny's continued celebrations. "How do you know about all of this stuff?" he questioned.

Her smile turned mischievous. "The love of my life was a big swinging dick." Tom looked at her in surprise. That only made her smile widen. "That's slang for trader."

Tom's eyebrows rose. "Does Harry know about this?"

Ruth's smile fell slightly, growing more wistful. "It is Harry trading is one of his hobbies. Helped us get the farmhouse." She added.

Tom took a breath. "That's what the phrase too much information was invented for." He told her simply.

"But I'm an information gatherer Tom." She reminded him.

"And a good one." He told her. Looking over at Danny, who'd finally returned to his normal mood, he changed the subject. "How's Danny doing?"

"Don't tell Harry, but he's a huge talent." She said simply, the exuberant smile returning almost completely.

Tom nodded, sighing. "I was afraid of that."

---

_1993.  
Turf Tavern.  
Oxford._

_She glanced quickly around the room, before taking the seat beside him. _

_She smiled at him, less awkward than usual. "Covert meetings, whispered conversations… I'm starting to feel more and more like James Bond." She confided in him._

_Harry smiled back, calm as always. "And here I was just having a quiet drink."_

_Ruth's smile dropped. "Sorry… I thought you said to meet you half six…"_

_Harry closed the space between them and leaned forward, resting his head on his uninjured hand. "That was a joke."_

"_Sorry." she told him again, still nervous._

_He smiled reassuringly. "Ruth you don't have to apologise."_

_She smiled tentatively. "I always feel like I have to apologise with you." she confessed._

"_Then I should be the one who's sorry."_

"_I thought that when I didn't see you, that maybe this was all over. Well… actually I was starting to think I'd imagined the whole thing up." She shook her head. "Then I saw him across the street yesterday."_

_Harry sighed, he'd already seen the evidence from Simon. That didn't explain the lack of contact though. If he was in Oliver's position he'd have taken the opportunity...unless Oliver hadn't been told about the Jenkins op, which could mean that Five and Six weren't sharing information, at least not unequivocally. "There was other business."_

_She nodded and he saw her gaze go to his wrist; the red skin slightly visible outside the white of the bandage. She swallowed visibly, stopping the immediately impulse to reach for it. "What happened?" she asked softly._

_Harry shook his head. "I can't tell you."_

_Ruth stayed silent, his eyes glued to his hand. "What if I was a sleeper?" _

_Harry shook his head, moving his arm off the table, away from her gaze. Her eyes met his. "No. If you were a sleeper then I couldn't speak to you at all."_

_Ruth deflated at that, looking away from him. "Oh."_

"_It wasn't bad though. Relatively minor." He lied. _Acid burns weren't serious at all._ Harry sighed. "Just… don't give me an answer yet."_

She looked at him again. Her eyes seemed larger than normal: more trusting than he recalled. "But… you've been trying to get an answer from me for three weeks."

_Harry sighed. "I can't tell you the details Ruth but… my instinct is telling me there's more going on here. I'm not sure what but the people who're trailing you aren't doing things normally."_

"_None of this is normal," she reminded him. _

_Harry disagreed. "Too you maybe… but this is unusual even for me. That's a problem."_

_They stayed quiet for a moment before she spoke up. _

"_I have to meet Lucy." She told him softly, but she didn't move to leave._

_Harry nodded, as if he already knew that. She should have found that disconcerting, but if was oddly comforting. It made her feel protected. He made her feel protected. _

"_It's going to rain. Remember your coat." He looked up at her, smirking. "As in 'get it back from her'. If you leave it any longer you'll never see it again."_

_Ruth smiled back. Nothing surprised her anymore._

_---_

_2003.  
River Thames.  
London._

She looked out at the river as she spoke. "I suppose you have evidence?"

"Computer traffic from your station, yes." Tom confirmed.

Ruth smiled slightly. "I coded it good."

"Colin uncoded it good." Tom said simply, letting the anger slip into his voice before turning his whole body to her. "Come on Ruth, you know how good he is, you had to know he'd track you. But you still betrayed us." He paused before firing the last words at her with venom she hadn't expected. "You betrayed Harry."

Ruth turned her head to him, her face a mask. "Harry has nothing to do with this." Tom shook his head in disbelief but she continued anyway. "He really doesn't. MI5 is a government department. I only told Downing Street what you were doing. The government can't betray itself to itself, can it?" She could almost believe that herself. Almost.

Tom shook his head at her again. "You're not that naïve Ruth. You know the situation, GCHQ planted you on us and Harry only agreed to the transfer because it was you."

Ruth breathed deeply, not trusting her own voice. "I never asked for Section D."

"But you accepted it." Tom reminded her.

Ruth swallowed. "Only because he said yes first." She told him softly. "Only then. Tom… I so much wanted to join MI5. You know…" She paused at the memories that were being awakened. Things she desperately wanted to forget and yet desperately wanted to stay with her forever. "…If Harry and I hadn't been together, I'd already be here. I'd be a real spy. They said I could finally have the transfer if… only very occasionally, I reported what you were doing." She shook her head at the irony. "I mean this is the first time I've done it… and I didn't even know it was going to be D and even then…" She breathed, deeply. It didn't help. "It seemed like a small price to pay for the chance."

Tom sighed, allowing a moment of silence. "You reported directly to Amanda Roke?" he asked and Ruth nodded in return. Tom moved forward, leaning into her. She didn't flinch. "Well now you're a classic double agent. How does it feel?"

Ruth answered honestly. Too honestly. " The horrible thing is it's rather exciting. I can see why Harry was always so involved." Her smile was almost childlike.

Tom's tone was serious. "Ruth… Danny was Zoë are at risk because of this. Do you want us to find them on Hampstead Heath? Crucified?"

Ruth's face turned deathly pale and she shook her head ever so slightly. "Don't."

Tom moved back from her. "I'll have to tell Harry."

Ruth looked upwards. She could feel her eyes starting to sting and she hated herself for being so weak. "He'll hate me… and you know I'm so bloody good at this job!" She bit the inside of her mouth to try and stop herself from speaking. It failed her like it had so often before. "You all know I am. But… that's that then." She sighed, staring again at the river.

Tom stayed quiet, knowing it was cruel but needing her to feel the pain he felt. "Of course double agents can be turned." He told her blithely.

Ruth moved her head so fast she was sure to have whiplash. She didn't care. "Oh Tom!"

Tom stood before her. "You're on probation."

Ruth smiled and felt the weight lift from her chest. She felt so much lighter.

She'd only felt relief like that once in her life. As with most things it revolved around Harry Pearce then too.

---

_1993.  
St Cross Rd.  
Oxford._

It was rapidly becoming one of his conversations from hell. Right up there with confronting Liz and having Juliet thrown back in his face. He ignored the pain in his hand, choosing instead to concentrate on the voice from the handset rather than the continued smell of sulphur that was following him around.

"_Sleeper recruitment doesn't take three weeks Harry. Especially not this one. You've got Taylor stuck on surveillance and you were distracted. You made contact three weeks ago!"_

_Harry could imagine her face turning slightly pink, he enjoyed the imagery. "It does if there's more going on than meets the eyes." He told her, greeting the expected silence with a smile._

_The DG's tone was intrigued. "Meaning?"_

"_Six have an ulterior motive." He said simply, hoping the vagueness would offset his lack of evidence. "They're practically stalking the poor girl." He added, the DG did always enjoy the human aspect._

"_Interesting." Was the reply. _

_Harry continued. "If I wasn't so close I've no doubt they would have used other methods already." _

"_Your plan?"_

_Harry paused before replying. His plan was to get her off his back first. Then he was actually going to think up a plan. "Well Simon's looking at Oliver. My contact at Six has nothing." _At all_ he added mentally, because he hadn't actually bothered to contact them, it was one thing to have a contact, it was another to have a glorified patsy as a contact. _

"_Simon can't stay there much longer. We've got an op running here that'll probably need both of you soon." She told him and he couldn't help the annoyance brimming up inside him. _

"_I need more." He needed more time. More information. More analysis. More conversations about nineteenth century literature. _

"_So… plan?" She asked again._

_Harry sighed. There was only one thing he could do. Direct action. "Confrontation."_

_He heard her sigh deeply but she didn't even try and dissuade him. "Don't ruffle too many feathers Harry," she told him, hanging up without waiting for a reply. _

_Harry smirked as he replaced the handset. "Do I ever?" he asked the empty room._

_Immediately the phone rang in reply. _

---

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London._

"The leak to Downing Street, do I need to know anything?" Harry asked, swirling the whisky around his glass.

Tom stayed silent. That spoke volumes.

"So someone's on probation." Harry stated, staring down his team leader.

Tom blew softly into his glass and opened his mouth to speak.

But Harry interrupted. "Only tell me who it is if it happens again." Tom's shoulders sagged ever so slightly, releasing the burden.

"Do you know what's happened to the money?" Tom asked, quickly changing the subject.

Harry smiled, enjoying the moment. "Ah… the NHS are getting some extra funding I believe. Try the news." He swallowed the rest whisky quickly. "You know I always said she'd be an excellent sleeper." he divulged.

Tom didn't need to ask who they were talking about, but he did anyway. "What?"

"This chance is valuable Tom, let's not miss it. It's to our advantage." He told him, dropping his glass onto the coffee table. No coaster.

"So why's she been asleep so long?"

Harry's smile was smug. "Her recruiter was a stupid, love struck idiot." He said simply.

To looked perplexed for a moment before replying. "I have heard some of they story before Harry… and you recruited her."

Harry's smile remained. "Precisely."

---

Thanks for reading.


	6. The Lady Eve

_I need him like the axe needs the turkey._

**- Jean Harrington (Barbara Stanwyck), The Lady Eve (1941)**

---

**Part 5 – _The Lady Eve_**

---

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

She knocked quickly on the door and then realised that in itself was unusual. She entered quickly, dropping the reports onto his already overloaded desk before he'd even looked up.

He smiled in the empty way she'd become used to seeing from him. Sometimes it wasn't like that, sometimes it was like before, but others, like now, were almost emotionless. No spark. It was depressing.

"Anything of interest?" He asked her.

"Patmos are blue, A/B. The Peckham house is A/A. Bristol animal rights group at A/B." she told him, her tone neutral in an attempt to copy his own.

Harry nodded. "Same as usual then." he dismissed quickly, before looking back to his document. Obviously much more important than the reports she'd spent all yesterday on. She tried not to let it bother her that he seemed to blow as hot or cold as a thermostat. He was probably moody, England had lost some stupid cricket match or something.

A 'something' like tomorrows date.

She stood there, like a lemon, unable to get the words to leave her lips. She remembered this awkwardness, but now it seemed even worse. Now there was an added history to the previous tension.

Harry looked up at her from the document which had so successfully been holding his attention, and suddenly she was back at Oxford, feeling like she was a disappointment every time he even looked her in the eye.

"Was there something else?" he asked in a tone that was far too business like for what she needed to talk about. Nevertheless, it forced the words from her and into the open.

"It's…" she started but then the words were gone again. She couldn't say the lines she'd practiced all week and she didn't know why. _It was the grieving process_ her head told her. Sometimes she couldn't even say his name, never mind think about him. The memories were either too painful because of the agony he'd been in, or because they were so happy and she knew she'd never experience that again; never even see him smile at her one last time. She took a breath and forced herself to speak them. "You know what day it'll be tomorrow. I'm going to see him." She stuttered, but pushed herself into continuing, putting her stubbornness to good use. "I thought maybe we could go together." She stopped, looked up at him, straightened her back and waited for his response.

No going back.

"I… can't."

She closed her eyes, overwhelmed with the sudden disappointment. She nodded quickly, her lungs feeling suddenly empty. "Oh okay… well I'll just…" She twisted her body away from him as quickly as she could manage.

"Ruth it's not…" he began, but she couldn't let him continue. She could feel the room, and even more so his presence, suffocating her from inside.

"No… it's fine… I'll see you later." She walked quickly from the room, knowing she had to keep everything inside. Showing emotion would just make her even more of a disappointment to him.

---

_1993.  
St Thomas Street.  
Oxford._

Her feet splashed in the puddles as she ran down the almost deserted street towards the barely lit box she prayed wasn't vandalised.

_The pouring rain had drenched her hair giving her a distinct 'drowned rat' appearance, and for the fortieth time that night she cursed her inability to say no. If she could say no she'd at least have had a coat._

_But she couldn't, so she was cold, wet and terrified. Probably halfway to hypothermia which would be the perfect end to the perfect day. _

_She shook her head to try and release at least some of the water that would soon be running uncomfortably down her back, and shivered as she pulled the door of the phone box closed._

_She breathed deeply as she stared at the handset, considering her limited options. Her one option realistically. She couldn't exactly call Lucy and tell her she'd been chased by a secret agent man who wanted to recruit her to save the world. Or kill her. Ruth wasn't exactly sure what those people had planned anymore._

_She steadied herself and took a deep breath before dialling the number she'd unconsciously committed to memory._

_He answered on the second ring and she didn't speak right away, her voice suddenly deserting her as she felt an overwhelming sense of relief at just hearing his voice. Pathetic. She had to literally fight her hands' overwhelming desire to hang up._

_Instead she spoke quickly, trying to keep the fear from her voice, more for her own benefit than for his, she told herself. She didn't succeed anyway._

"_There was a man… He followed me… closer than the others so I went into the nearest pub and told them I was trying to get away from my boyfriend and they let me out the service entrance and I called you Jerry because Lucy would have called the police and I wasn't sure what would happen if I had to speak to them because you can get charged for wasting police time and there was no way they were going to catch some spy and believe me anyway!" She barely breathed as she said it, which considering just how oxygen deprived she really was, was extremely impressive._

"_Where are you?" He asked her simply, his tone different to normal. He was probably tired._

"_You don't need to come, I just needed to hear your voice so I felt safe." Pathetic. Even as the words were leaving her mouth she felt pathetic, but as usually she couldn't stop herself from speaking._

"_Where are you Ruth?" He repeated, almost ignoring her._

"_A pay phone on St Thomas Street." She told him, reluctant but needy. Pathetic. She'd barely known the man three weeks. He was also a spy… like the people who were giving her sleepless nights, but she trusted him. Which made no sense because she barely trusted Lucy and she'd known her for four years._

"_Give me ten minutes and I'll pick you up." He told her._

_She tried again. "I can get a…"_

_But he interrupted her. "Ten minutes."_

_She could hear him breathing over the line, waiting for her to answer him. "Thank you." She whispered._

_She could almost feel his smile as he replied. "You're welcome."_

_She hung up then, trying hard not to count the seconds until he arrived._

_She didn't try hard enough._

---

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

Harry took one look at Ruth's horrified face and knew he was going straight to hell. 

"Go back to your station and stay there." Tom told, or rather, commanded her.

"But Tom…" she began, and under other circumstances Harry would (and had) have found endearing.

"Go!" Tom forcibly told her again. This time she listened, Harry found that amusing.

Harry's game face almost slipped as her watched her leave. He turned to Tom, going onto script. "I didn't think it was the real thing." he paused. "Forgive me." Harry Pearce had no problem going for the gut.

"It's alright Harry." Tom placated him. "Look there is an antidote. If there's a way of getting it we will."

Harry shook his head, finding more amusement that he should've from the situation. "That's not possible and you know it."

Tom paused, conflicted. "I'm so sorry." he told him honestly and Harry felt slightly guilty for the test. But only slightly, it was their job after all. "I'm going to have to quarantine your office."

He moved back into business mode with an ease Harry found strangely familiar and he felt a strange, almost fatherly, pride. The thought made him almost as physically sick as he was pretending to be. "I can't even shake your hand."

Harry nodded, suddenly needing him out of the room as soon possible. "You'll need to take the keys: to lock me in."

---

_1993.  
St Cross Rd.  
Oxford._

_She only took off his coat after he'd demanded it. Twice._

_She looked around the one room bed-sit before telling him diplomatically. "Nice… place." _

"_Safe house." He said simply, it took a moment for him to realise that she probably didn't know what that meant. It was like he expected her to know him as well as he knew her._

"_It doesn't look very safe." she told him honestly. He was surprised that she didn't ask more questions but then he took in her shaking form and could guess her reasons._

"_It's more of lodging than for anything more interesting." he explained, gesturing for her to sit._

_She did so still shaking. "Oh okay." She accepted it easily. Very unlike her. _

_He pointed towards the 'kitchen' which consisted of a sink and a kettle. "I'd offer you tea but I'm a little out right now."_

_Ruth nodded, her eyes unfocused. "That's fine." She looked up at him, her head moving quickly to look at his eyes as she insisted again. "I'm fine."_

"_You're shivering." He told her, moving towards the pathetic excuse for a gas fire. "Stay there and get warm."_

"_I really am fine." She continued again._

_Harry dismissed her. "Ruth, if you say you're fine one more time, when I can actually hear your teeth chattering…" He trailed off, turning and raising his eyebrows at her, daring her to disagree._

"_I'm a little cold." she admitted reluctantly, and Harry was ready to declare her the master of the understatement. "Maybe a little freezing." she continued, obviously noting his continued scepticism._

_He sat down beside her, close enough to feel her shivering. The silence was uncomfortable, the situation too tense for one of their usual conversations. "So you didn't take my advice on the weather then?" He finally asked her, trying to inject some humour before the silence overwhelmed them completely._

_Ruth shook her head, a smile finally lighting her pretty face. "Lucy'll probably give it back to me in March."_

_Harry smiled and leaned back in his seat, a move that brought him slightly closer to her. "You stay right here until you're completely dry."_

_Ruth nodded, the fight seeming to have gone from her completely now. Harry realised that tonight was the first time he'd ever seen her look even remotely tired, and now she looked exhausted. He wasn't sure whether it was intentional or not, but he didn't draw attention to the fact that she was now leaning slightly against his shoulder. It must have been a comfort, because the shivering had almost ceased. "It was the Byfield technique." she told him softly._

"_What was?"_

_Her head leaned sideways on the settee as she turned her whole body to face him. _

"_The man who followed me. That's how I knew he was one of you." she swallowed, hard and Harry resisted the urge he had to touch the side of her face. "He was closer than the Griffin option and needed to keep contact because he was always on the other side of the road." She paused and he nodded for her to continue. "He was always level with me so I went down a side street and he followed me. So I knew." She explained. _

_Harry was impressed as he spoke. "Stupid idiot."_

_Ruth moved her head back slightly, surprised. Probably insulted too. "Excuse me!?" _

_Harry shook his head, smiling wider. "Oh not you. You did very well but he made a series of schoolboy errors that weren't needed."_

_She relaxed slightly but frowned, her disappointment was clear from her tone. It made him smile even more. "So anyone would've spotted him?"_

_Harry shook his head as he replied. "Any spook would have. But you're not a spook Ruth so how did you know about the techniques?" he asked her, genuinely interested._

_He saw her cheeks turn slightly red and he suspected it wasn't due to the heat. "I've been researching." she admitted._

"_I thought so." He grinned at her, noting how close they were, their knee's touching and their hands so close. But he didn't move. "You'll stay here tonight." he told her instead. _

"_But what about…" she began._

_Harry interrupted her. "You will stay here because here I can look after you, okay?" He wasn't going to take no for an answer._

_She nodded and he could tell she was feeling tired again. _

"_I know I'm safe with you." _

_She looked at him for a moment and he wondered how eyes could even be so cool; the grey seemed to be able to see into his soul. She looked away and he watched her as she watched the flames from the cheap heater. _

_She was almost dry now, but neither of them moved. _

_Together but apart._

_Harry thought over her words, pondering them as he guessed she was doing the same._

_How could you feel safe with someone who'd been lying to you from the start?_

_She couldn't trust him. He barely trusted himself._

---

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

Ruth stared at the closed door as if she could see directly through it.

She couldn't.

Why was it that even now, so many years later, she still felt like a disappointment to him at moments like this? Harry wanted her to be strong and she couldn't let him down.

She watched in silence as Tom exited, catching a quick glimpse of the man who would always be such an important part of her life. She couldn't imagine a world without Harry Pearce. She didn't want to even consider the possibility. There had been a time, not so long ago, that she'd assumed the men in her life were indestructible. Or maybe just wanted to. She'd worried, as any mother and wife did, but she'd never considered something so final as life without them. Now the possibility was all too real and all too close.

She heard the click as he locked the door and realised she'd been lost in her thoughts. Tom was looking at her and she stared up at him.

"So it's in here?" She asked him, already knowing the obvious answer before the question even left her lips.

"Yeah." Tom replied simply.

"Shall we tell?" Another necessary question. Another one she didn't really care about.

"No." Of course they shouldn't. It would damage moral. Like it was damaging hers.

"We just leave Harry?" It was soft and quiet and she didn't even realise she'd said it until it was out there.

"What else can we do?" He asked her, looking for guidance. Looking for something that Ruth didn't want to give. That she couldn't give. She could never give up to Harry.

"It's a terrible decision Mr Tom Quinn." she told him instead, feeling stronger than she had all day. All week actually: that probably made her a terrible person. But Harry was dying and all she cared about was making sure Tom stayed in control. Because if he didn't, then Harry would die for nothing and that just wasn't fair.

"Is it Ruth? I can't tell anymore." He was leaning closer to her, but she didn't find it uncomfortable. Instead she found it powerful. "They look at you and their eyes are either full of dumb hate or dumb trust. What am I gonna do Ruth?"

Ruth shook her head in disbelief. "What are you saying? Oh the head of the king, let all the sorrows lie?"

Tom continued. "I'm meant to be Em-Ex officer and I don't know what to do. I don't!"

"Don't go all moody and sensitive." She dismissed him, annoyed in that moment more than ever. With him. With the world. With Harry. With herself. "That's for us, we're the troops and you're the leader! And leaders don't have feelings, as you well know." She'd referred to her husband as an unfeeling bastard before but never to his favourite officer and never while he was dying. Alone. It made her feel as sick as VX was going to make her inevitably.

Tom shook his head at her. "You're trying to comfort me… it's a strange way of doing it."

"You're in charge!" She reminded him. She paused and looked over his shoulder. "and I want… I want the key to that office. But you can't give it to me."

Tom stared at her before replying. "No."

"I'll ask again." She told him simply, looking straight back at him.

"We need you here." He reminded her.

Ruth smiled sadly. "Yes." And she needed Harry. More than she needed oxygen.

---


	7. The Lost Weekend

_Most men lead lives of quiet desperation. I can't take quiet desperation!_  
**Don Birnam** (**Ray Milland**), **The Lost Weekend (1945)**

---

**Part 6 –** **_The Lost Weekend_**

---

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London._

Ruth kept her eyes on the white board as she spoke.

"Eight hours since we heard anything at all." She sighed, rubbing her eyes to try and relieve the tiredness. "Saturday morning. I should be shopping, I always shop on Saturdays, even now. Do you know what day it is?" She looked at him then.

Tom nodded. "Yes."

Ruth smiled sadly. "Eight would've been a good age, don't you think?"

"Any age would've been great." Tom told her sympathetically.

Ruth nodded, looking quickly at the closed blinds of his office. "What about Harry?"

Tom blew the air from his lungs. "We leave him alone."

"I mean… sh… shouldn't we give him same water or something?"

Tom shook his head. "We daren't break his quarantine."

Ruth sighed, but accepted reluctantly. "Yes."

Tom looked at her with that annoying sympathetic look that just screamed 'I know your husbands about to die but please try not to get all emotional about it because I'm a man and we don't like bawling women'. "What about you? Are you all right?"

She paused before she answered. "Am I alright?" she repeated needlessly. "It's pointless really. I mean I'm an analyst but there's nothing to analyse." She looked at the metal in her hands and laughed inappropriately. "Just scissors to stab in the wall." She moved her hand in a stab like gesture and was sorely tempted to hum the Psycho theme tune.

"When the power comes back on you'll be the most important person in this room." he told her.

Normally she'd have loved the compliment. A compliment like that from Tom was almost as good as one from Harry. But Harry couldn't give her a compliment because he was in his office dying. "You know…" she began slowly, her eyes drifting to Harry's closed blinds. "I never realised… but I'm just my job. There's nothing else." She kept her eyes focused on that room, almost ignoring Tom's presence. "Not anymore anyway. There's no Jamie to worry about outside. My mothers… well that's not important. Graham's…" She paused to take a breath. "_Somewhere_ but I really don't care right now. Cathy's in Israel… so she's alright." She nodded to reassure herself of that fact. They'd talked a few weeks before so she had to still be there. "Without my job I go completely to pieces. So similar that way."

Tom tried to disagree, but he didn't really get the point. "No no… you're much more important than that." He insisted and she smiled at his sweetness. His cluelessness.

"No… no I'm happy with that." She told him, and she really was. She was so much happier here than back in Cheltenham. With or without Harry she loved her job. She just loved Harry more.

"Really?" Tom asked her, sceptically.

"I'm away from the mathematicians." Definitely an important reason for her transfer. Numbers were so inferior to letters.

"You can check on him." He told her and she felt her chest tighten in response.

Her eyes drifted back to the closed blinds. "I want to more than anything." She told him honestly. Then she looked back at Tom. "But the moment I do that this is all over, isn't it?"

---

_1993.  
St Cross Rd.  
Oxford._

_She woke with a crick in her neck, the shoulder she'd used as a pillow the night before was no longer there. Instead she found herself lying on an actual bed. Her first thought was to check she was fully clothed. Which she was, thank god. Her second was wondering where the hell she was. _

_Then she remembered._

_The shoulder was Jerry's._

_The bed-sit was sort of Jerry's,_

_The bed was also kind of Jerry's._

_But there was no Jerry._

_She was sitting up on the bed trying desperately to get some form of movement back in her neck, when the door opened._

_Her heart literally skipped a beat before she saw the figure. Then it started up again and she let out a deep breath._

"_So sleeping beauty awakes." he stated, dropping the bag onto the pathetic excuse for a kitchen cabinet._

_Ruth looked at him and swallowed, shaking the sleep from her head. She smiled, more than slightly embarrassed. "I'm sorry about last night." she told him softly._

_Jerry smiled at her. "I'm just glad you came to me."_

_Ruth tried to stop the comfort she felt from that simple movement of his lips but she wasn't successful. "Well you are the only secret agent I know." she reminded him playfully._

"_Yes… but I'm not the only agent that knows you Ruth." he told her, moving across the room to sit beside her. "Whatever's going on here is unusual. This isn't a normal occurrence. I don't trust these people Ruth. I don't think you're safe with them."_

"_But I'm safe with you." she told him before her brain could catch up with her mouth. Immediately her face grew warmer and she looked away from him. Jerry, however, didn't seem to notice and she couldn't decide whether that was a good thing or not. Part of her, a large part, desperately want him to notice, to smile and tell her he'd be her protector. The other part just wanted him to ignore her embarrassment and keep talking. That was the part Jerry played._

"_I want you to stay here with me." he told her._

_Her head swung back to look at him and her eyes widened. "Here? With you?"_

_Jerry nodded, apparently not realising where her thoughts were headed. He clearly didn't read her as well as she'd thought he did. "It's better for you and makes it harder for them. I'm going to be gone for a little while. You'll stay here." he practically commanded her as he stood, already leaving._

"_By myself?" It came out much needier than she'd intended and she could feel her embarrassment rising once again._

"_You'll be safe here." He touched her shoulder and she found that simple touch an annoying mixture of comfort and placation. "I promise." he added, that simple statement adding a lot to her peace of mind. More than it should have, she suspected._

"_Where are you going?"_

"_I'm going to see a man about a dog." he told her, deadpan, and then he smirked. "Then I'm going to see the dogs and… persuade them to stop following innocent students."_

_She couldn't help the grin forming, even though the serious of the situation was still terrifying her. "How?"_

"_Threaten them probably." She actually couldn't tell if he was joking about that. If she'd had to guess she'd have probably said he was being half-truthful. _

"_Shouldn't I come with you?" _

_He shook his head. "Oh no… this is between me and him, you stay here and I promise that I'll sort all of this out for you."_

_The funny thing was, no matter how ridiculous the statement was, she believed him. She actually believed that he could sort all of this mess out and stop them from coming after her. She believed in him and she wasn't at all sure why._

---

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London._

He pulled the trigger and the room was suddenly silent.

Then the lights came on but he kept the gun primed and ready to fire, even though his head told him there was something else going on because he'd shot Mark from close range and he was still standing.

Tom's eyes flicked to the side and her saw Harry walking towards them and his hands shook. His whole body shook.

He heard Ruth's voice clear across the room as everyone else stayed silent and waiting. "You bastard!" Then the only thing he heard were her deceptively calm footsteps as she walked purposefully from the room. They echoed loudly through the silence.

Harry seemed to pause before he continued towards Tom. He ignored the others and spoke directly to him. "Congratulations Tom. That was a superb display of leadership."

There was a beat before Tom lowered the gun slowly and passed it into Harry's waiting hand.

"Thanks Harry… thanks, how was your night?"

"Thoroughly satisfactory." he said simply, conspicuously avoiding eye contact. He took the second handgun from Zoë and watched as he hugged her quickly. "Full marks." he whispered. "Do you think I was convincing?" he asked over Zoë's head.

Tom nodded, his face so stoic. "Oh utterly." He glanced towards the empty corridor. "Utterly."

Harry took in his stare. "I didn't pick the day." he reasoned, letting go of Zoë and facing Tom fully.

Tom nodded. "No, you probably didn't pick the woman with the sick child either." He replied quickly, staring back. Then he shook his head. "Now would be a very good moment to talk to your wife." At Harry's nod Tom took out his mobile phone. Selfishness was never more unattractive than after the end of the world.

---

_1993.  
__Queen St.  
__Oxford._

"_What's he doing?" Harry asked into the microphone, glancing up from his paper towards the restaurant opposite._

"_Eating. And that's all." He could hear Simon sigh into his ear. "I don't think I've ever been on a surveillance job that's been so completely boring."_

"_It's good to work with you to Simon." Harry told him_

"_All I'm saying is that your assignments are usually much more interesting than watching a man eat beans on toast. Especially if that man is supposed to be one of the best agents around."_

"_Don't let Oli hear you say that." Harry paused for a moment as someone passed him by. "Besides, a change of pace is good for the soul."_

_He could hear Simon's disbelief clearly. "You've changed your tune. All the way here you were moaning about this, said you had much better things to do. More important." He could hear Simon's annoying smirk forming even though he couldn't see it. "Didn't think she was your type."_

_Harry didn't give him the satisfaction of answering him. "She's far too good to get stuck with our life."_

"_From what I've read she's practically perfect for us. It's six who're talking it too far."_

"_As always."_

"_Sometimes, I'll give you that one."_

"_She's far to…" He struggled to make the comparison. Logically he knew there was no real reason she couldn't be a spook. A damned good one actually. But the fact remained he couldn't think of anything worse than seeing someone like Ruth as jaded and demoralised as he'd seen so many colleagues. The thing that was even harder to comprehend though, was that she _wouldn't_ become that, the idea that she would be lost in the same way far to many officers were in the dangerous business of protecting the country. Instead he settled for what was basically a lie. "…nice for this. She's naïve. Too trusting." Niceness and naivety were things that could be changed as easily as teaching someone to fire a loaded weapon. But he never wanted Ruth to ever change. _

_Simon's voice was in his ear again. Annoyingly logical at a moment when Harry was completely uninterested in logic. "If you don't get her then six will. Lesser of two evils, if you're partial to that analogy. Mace isn't exactly known for his ability to move on and this is one of those occasions when he really wants a target."_

"_You can tell this by watching him?"_

"_That and working with you."_

"_Thanks for the opinion." Harry told him honestly. _

"_No problem." There was a pause before normal service resumed. "He's moving."_

_Harry watched the doorway, standing when he saw his target leave. "I've got him."_

---

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London._

She was pacing when he found her.

Never a good sign.

Pacing in sevens. Practically a sign of a coming apocalypse. As much of an omen as the four horseman.

She was rubbing her head as she always did when she was overtired; the last time he'd seen her like that was just before the end, on one of the few occasions he'd come home before dawn and she'd still been awake in the seat she'd always sat in to wait for him. The amount of times he'd come home to find her asleep in that seat was too many to count. Her hands were shaking as well, a combination of anger and almost hysterics.

He didn't think she'd even noticed him until she spoke. "I can't believe you did that to me."

"I was doing my job." he told her simply. Knowing immediately that was the wrong thing to say.

Ruth shook her head, the uncharacteristic smirk on her face showing her anger. "Bridget was talking about her sick daughter! You're telling me you didn't know about that?" Her hands rose to show her disbelief and Harry remembered a time when she'd trusted him completely. When she'd trusted him more than she should have. "I was already thinking about what to tell Catherine!"

"It was an exercise in situation control. Vital to test our procedures and this was the best…"

"And I stayed in control when all I wanted to do was let her out… all I wanted was to see Jamie. To see you."

"This wasn't about James." he denied. Knowing that wasn't really true. Everything in his life was about Jamie and probably always would be. He stayed in the service to make sure there were no Jamie's anymore. Anyone that could be saved was saved. Any sacrifice was used for the greater good.

She'd stopped pacing now and was standing facing him. He could see the tear tracks down her face but she wasn't crying anymore. Now she looked more angry than upset. If he was honest with himself (and he rarely was) he couldn't blame her for that.

"Oh it is." she claimed rightly: she was almost always right, but that didn't mean he had to agree with her. "You still can't even say him name. You have no idea how hard it was for me to just walk out of that room and leave you there to die. But, stupidly I didn't want to let you down. If I broke down I'd have let you down and I couldn't _bare_ to even _think_ of disappointing you."

His mind swayed to the photograph in his desk draw. A picture of a time as far away now as a thousand years. "You didn't let me down." he told her. He'd meant that as a good thing. He'd meant it as in he was proud of her performance. He knew, as usual it was the wrong thing to say. That she'd take it the wrong way.

"But you let me down." she told him, her voice deceptively calm, almost void of life. "How could you let me think that? How could you put me through that?" she pleaded with him for an answer.

He couldn't give her one, because in truth he didn't know himself. How could you do that to someone who was still everything to you? There was no logical answer. "You wanted to be treated like everyone else. Like any normal member of my team." he reminded her instead.

"But I'm not!"

"You don't think I know that? God Ruth it's not like I've developed amnesia!" He raised his voice at her which almost never happened. He very rarely lost control of his personal feelings but Ruth had always been good at getting to him like that without even trying. "You left _me_ Ruth!"

She shook her head at him in denial which he found ridiculous. Maybe she was the one with amnesia because he still remembered coming home to that empty house on that Monday morning almost 2 years before. She'd left all the possessions; barely taken anything but without her that house would always be empty to him. "You drove me away. You are not the man I married Harry. The man I married would never have put me through this today. It's spiteful and it's cruel and it _hurts_."

Harry disagreed. "That's something you are very wrong about. No matter what our relationship…"

Ruth interrupted him. "We don't have a relationship anymore Harry! That died when Jamie did."

"And who decided that?" he asked, spitefully. He knew it was true but she was giving as good as he was. She'd always had a talent for verbal sparing. Probably from debating at Oxford. Probably from debating with him. How times had changed from their days of playful arguments about classic films and literature.

Ruth shook her head at him. "You left me long before I left you." she challenged him.

"You walked out the door. Couldn't even face me to say goodbye. Left me a note as I recall." Of course he recalled. He'd expected it, but when it came it still took him by surprise - and few things _ever_ surprised him. A cold empty house.

"I couldn't face what you'd become." she told him honestly. Brutally honest even. "You can't even look at him in photos. You couldn't even look at me. It was like I'd done something terrible. But now _I'm_ done."

"You're resigning?" he asked her, slightly surprised by that decision. He'd expected her to be much more Ruth-like. Much more stubborn. Much more like the woman who'd refused to stop trying to win over Graham, even when he acted like a spoilt brat to her.

Ruth shook her head at him and he couldn't help the relief that rushed through him at her next words. "Oh no… you're not getting rid of me. I love this job and I'm good at it. Much better than you ever thought I'd be."

"Don't twist the past. That was your decision." he told her and he was right. He knew he was right, she'd made the choice "You made the choice not me."

"Well it was obviously the wrong one."

"Quite clearly."

"Are you finished?"

"Are you?" he was almost sounding like his son now; childish and immature.

"I want a divorce." she shouted it at him and it felt like a physical injury. Amazing what a piece of paper still meant after so long.

But he didn't let that show, never let your enemy's see your weakness. "Fine. If that's what you want."

Ruth let her voice drop and her eyes shone as she looked at him. A look that meant more than the words that followed. "I'm _so_ tired of living in limbo and never moving on. I'm tired of reaching out to you and having you throw it back in my face." He closed his eyes and looked away from here. Away from the truth. He couldn't look at her anymore and see the pain he was responsible for. "The man I loved died with our son and it's time we both accepted that." Her voice was quiet now, resigned and almost lifeless.

He hated it almost as much as he hated himself.

It was time. It made complete sense. He'd changed without Jamie. But so had she.

He watched her walk away. Watched her speed up as she reached the pods.

So that was that.

That was how it would end.

How disappointing.

How predictable.

Nothing surprised him anymore.

---


	8. Wuthering Heights

_If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn't love you as much as I do in a single day.  
_**Heathcliff (Laurence Olivier), ****Wuthering Heights (1939)**

---

**Part 7 - ****_Wuthering Heights_**

---

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

He picked up the phone quickly and was slightly hesitant as she whispered to him. "They're sending it here."

"What?"

"You said tell customs to open a crate. So I did and now they've told me they've had a look and there's a problem and they're sending it here." She was quick and concise as usual. She turned and looked at him though; he looked up a moment later to do the same.

"A Libyan problem?" he asked her, his eyes catching hers.

"They're not saying…which scares me." she told him honestly.

Harry hung up the phone and Ruth continued to look at him through the glass window of his office. They stared at each other for less than a second before both turning away, Harry to Tom and Ruth to her work.

Danny and Zoë watched from across the room.

"It's like non verbal tennis." Danny commented, watching Ruth and Harry with interest.

Zoë nodded from beside him. "You're right; one looks up, then the other does, then they look away and it starts all over again."

"They're getting a divorce you know." Sam told them, perching herself on the edge of Danny's desk.

They didn't.

"Who told you that?"

"I overheard Ruth telling Malcolm." She replied, shrugging slightly. "They've known each other for ages apparently. I asked him how long and he said since Raleigh. Didn't tell me what that was though."

They turned their attention back to the couple in question. "Probably an op."

Zoë shook her head. "No, Ruth's from GCHQ not 6. Something else." She sighed. "I think it's sad. I mean there's Tom and Ellie… if he'd actually been Matthew Archer then they'd still be together. And those two can barely be in the same room anymore. We're all destined for heartbreak." she told them.

Sam nodded in agreement.

Danny lowered his voice, leaning forward across the desk. "You heard Tom didn't you? It was the son, not the job."

"If your husband pretended to be dying would you be a little annoyed?" Zoë raised her eyebrows.

Danny sighed. There wasn't a lot he could do with that argument.

---

_1993.  
__University Parks.  
__Oxford._

"_Oliver." He greeted his fellow bench sitter._

"_Harry… what a surprise." His tone made it clear that he was anything but surprised._

"_Terrorising young women? Six have certainly changed their recruitment procedures." Harry told him dryly. _

_Oliver smiled, unperturbed. "Thank you for the opinion."_

"_You can't scare the living daylights out of someone you want as an operative."_

_Oliver continued to be unmoved. "My analysts are of the opinion that Miss Evershed would be uninterested in the more glamorous aspects of our profession." _

_Harry couldn't disagree with that. "I think she's unsuitable for you." _

_Oliver turned towards him. "Thank you for your concern but I've always been of the belief that when someone has that academic record there is always a use for them in the service."_

_Harry smiled sardonically and shook his head in disbelief. "Are you expecting me to believe that every academically gifted person is a target for Six?!?"_

_Oliver smiled smugly, he clearly didn't expect Harry to fall for the company line. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to continue to tow it. "Far from it… from my understanding it was more that her thesis on the Armenian Holocaust didn't cure poor Jools's insomnia."_

"_I find that hard to believe."_

"_Then try harder." Oliver replied, unmoved. "She's bright, intelligent, high moral standpoint and naïve. With training she could be a valuable asset."_

"_Or she could crack." Harry reminded him._

"_Anyone can end up at Tring. Happens to the best of us." Oliver grinned. "Besides she strikes me as extremely stubborn."_

_Harry nodded in agreement. "Me too."_

"_What's your plan anyway? Waste her as another sleeper librarian?" Oliver guessed a little to well._

"_Better than the alternative." Harry returned and watched as Oliver's grin grew even wider._

"_Oh God!" He chuckled lightly. "I should have known she was just your type. Hair colour anyway." _

_Harry looked away but didn't deny it. There wasn't much point. "Helpful Oliver." he replied instead._

_Oliver's grin remained. "I just find it amusing that the great Harry Pearce is being influenced by a student."_

_Harry stood, straightening his coat. "She's not for Six." he stated simply. "And stop the schoolboy terror tactics, they're stupid and unnecessary."_

_Oliver remained seated. "We'll see."_

"_Don't push me Oliver."_

_Oliver raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm just doing my job Harry… why don't you try doing yours."_

---

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

Ruth shifted in her seat, attempting to avoid Miranda's gaze. Therapy wasn't really something she enjoyed. At all.

"We can talk about anything you know." Miranda reminded her. Again. As if Ruth hadn't heard her the first 2 times. "Anything or anyone you feel needs scrutiny. Just let rip. This is your time."

Ruth sighed, frowning. "What's everyone else been saying?"

"Lots of interesting things." Miranda replied vaguely. There was a momentary silence before Miranda continued. "Why did you join MI5 Ruth?"

Ruth was startled for a moment, both by the question and suddenness of it. "I'm only on secondment."

Miranda smiled falsely. "But you're here. Working with your husband. Sorry," she looked at the papers before her and Ruth resisted the extreme urge to reach over and read whatever she was looking at, "soon-to-be-ex-husband." Miranda corrected herself. She looked up then and looked expectantly at Ruth. "If I was divorcing someone I certainly wouldn't choose to work in the same building as them. Never mind the same department." she commented.

Ruth's mouth opened and closed a few times. "I don't think that's any of your business." she said honestly.

Miranda nodded, proceeding to write a few words into her notebook. "Do you resent him?" She didn't look at Ruth, instead continuing to write on her pad.

"No." Ruth said quickly.

Miranda looked up from her writing. "I've read your file Ruth. Don't you ever wonder what might have been?"

"As much as anyone." Ruth sighed. "That was a long time ago and there were other circumstances involved."

"Like your son." Miranda pressed.

Ruth drew her mouth into a line, her face stony. "Yes and the fact I don't have the stomach for it."

"Yet you married a spy."

Ruth shook her head. "I married a man who happened to be a spy. There's a difference. I married him because I _love_ him."

"Not _loved_?" Miranda remarked, continuing before Ruth could even open her mouth to reply. "Did you think proximity would help your relationship?"

"Well considering that we're now getting divorced my nefarious plan backfired, didn't it?"

Miranda didn't reply, only smiled slightly and continued to make notes. Annoying little notes.

"I don't think our personal differences will have any impact on our professional life." Ruth continued.

"I see." Miranda said simply, smiling a little too sweetly. She changed tact quickly and with ease. "You were sent by GCHQ to spy on us, to spy on Harry Pearce in particular."

Ruth smiled sardonically. "Ruth the treacherous mole…" she paused and the smile turned into a heavy frown. "They were probably trying to exploit our relationship." she disclosed.

"And that didn't work?"

"I'm not a woman scorned Miranda. We're adults and perfectly able to keep our personal lives at home."

"That's interesting."

Ruth shook her head. "It's really not."

"What about your son. How did James's death affect you?"

Ruth paused, unable to stop the moisture gathering in her eyes. "I don't think that's any of your business."

"It is if it affects your work."

"It doesn't. I'm not a field operative anyway, I was awful at that in basic training. Both times."

Miranda smiled, smugly. "But in your original training report the indication was that you could easily improve the physical aspects. So why didn't you?"

"I chose another path." Ruth returned simply.

"Until now." Miranda said quietly. "Your father died when you were very young didn't he Ruth?"

"I don't see what that has to do with anything…" Ruth told her, even more confused. They seemed to be going round in circles and the interview was becoming less about the job and more about Harry. It was uncomfortable.

"Were you looking for a father figure? 17 years is quiet an age gap." Miranda stated, still writing her notes.

"That's ridiculous. We loved each other, I wasn't some naïve schoolgirl I was a grown woman and the age gap didn't make a blind bit of difference." Ruth replied, aggravated.

"Then why are you divorcing him?"

There was a sharp knock on the door and Ruth breathed a sigh of relief. She turned to see Sam entering the room. Someone was definitely getting a huge box of chocolates tomorrow.

"Sorry." she started apologetically. "Ruth, GCHQ said you'd better look at this."

"We're in the middle..." Miranda started.

Ruth grabbed the lifeline of the documents and turned back to Miranda. "Yes Miranda, we bloody well are in the middle!" she stated, standing to leave.

She could hear Miranda's tutting as she left the room, along with the along with the unmistakable sound of pen on paper.

She couldn't help but wonder what she was writing.

---

_1993.  
__St Cross Rd.  
__Oxford._

_Ruth shook her head at the tape, the pain of defeat flooding back to her. _

"_Oh you stupid girl it's F. Scott Fitzgerald!." The memory of the defeat was still quiet fresh. She'd probably never get over it…she'd also never forgive Margo for buzzing in on a question about literature when she didn't even know which Bronte wrote Jane Eyre and which one wrote Wuthering Heights. If they'd gotten that starter then they'd have been at least 30 points in front and there was only one question remaining. _

_But they hadn't. They'd lost to Churchill College Cambridge, as if loosing wasn't bad enough. _

_She jumped as the door swung open and Jerry returned._

"_You'll be staying a few days." He told her quickly, almost before the door had even swung closed. "We'll go and get some of your things later." He explained further._

"_So it didn't go well?"_

_Jerry closed his eyes for a moment. "I didn't learn very much. You're not in any danger Ruth. You can trust me on that." He moved to reassure her and she felt a strange kind of warmth that he could read her so well after such a short time. Then she remembered that he was a spy and it was his job to read and understand people. The warmth remained in the pit of her stomach though, as he came and sat beside her. _

_He then took a look at the TV and was surprised to find Ruth's face staring out at him._

_He raised an eyebrow at her and she blushed. Strange that she should be the one embarrassed when it was his video._

_It was a good thing he was a government agent or she'd have found that a little strange. As it was, he already seemed to know everything about her so it wasn't even a surprise when she turned on the video and found her last appearance on University Challenge._

"_You know that was the first time I'd ever lost." she divulged. _

"_On a television quiz program?" Jerry joked, smiling._

"_At almost anything." she blushed. "I never realised how competitive I'd become until I lost that game."_

"_So I shouldn't challenge you to scrabble then?" Jerry remarked._

_Ruth raised her eyebrows. "Do you have scrabble in this… place?"_

_He shook his head. "Probably not. But you do."_

_Ruth chuckled in surprise. "Is there anything you don't know about me?"_

_Jerry shrugged, grinning at her. "I doubt it." The problem was that he couldn't know everything about her. If he did he'd know what Oliver was hiding. Maybe something she was hiding as well._

---

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

Harry smiled as he watched the monitor before him, paying no attention to Ruth's watching gaze as he reached for the ended his call.

Harry Pearce 1. America 0.

He was still enjoying the victory glow when she finally spoke, quick and clipped.

"Am I getting the sack?" Simple but effective.

"What?"

"Someone's getting the sack, is it me?"

"No. If you're worried about Miranda then you should be aware that she's being relocated."

Ruth breathed in relief before divulging her major concern with the interview. "She asked about us. A lot."

"So let her." Harry told her simply.

Ruth shook her head. "I don't like being talked about. It's bad enough with everyone out there talking about us like we're their own personal soap opera without everyone else being as bad."

"You're not getting the sack Ruth." He told her simply. "And people gossip. They'll get bored and move onto something far more interesting."

Ruth nodded slowly. "Thank you."

Harry turned away from her and she took that as her cue to leave. His voice stopped her as she reached for the door, softer than usual. Softer than the usual voice she was now growing depressingly used to. "And I'm not making allowances for you. You're the best damned analyst in the service and you know it."

Ruth didn't reply. Instead she walked from the office as if she hadn't even heard him.

But the grin that lit her face told a different story. For once it reached her eyes as well.

---


	9. Cool Hand Luke

_What we've got here is failure to communicate  
_**Captain (Strother Martin), Cool Hand Luke (1967)**

**---**

**Part 8 – _Cool Hand Luke_**

---

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

The others stared at him with open mouths as he paced before them.

"I have a state of the art alarm system. A random burglar wouldn't know where to start." Harry glanced at the others, they were clearly unconvinced. "I've found traces of blood, they're being analysed now."

Ruth leaned across the table towards him. "You have to tell them. Six will have copies of the codes and we need them."

"Harry, it's our duty as much as yours to report this."

Harry nodded reluctantly. "I know. But I would ask for a few hours while I try and save my career. I'll be in my office." He turned and left, swiftly.

Ruth sighed, literally biting her tongue before she spoke quietly. "Rule number one, never _ever_ take your work home with you."

Zoë leaned across the table towards her and Tom. "Rule number two, report any officer that does, especially when he goes and loses it! We could all be implicated in a cover-up."

Danny nodded in agreement. "Harry wouldn't be the only one to lose his job."

Zoë reached for the phone in the center of the table but Tom's hand closed over her before she could lift the handset.

"I know the implications of this but he asked for a few hours so lets see that he gets them." Tom told her, pushing her hand away.

"And you think he'd do the same for us?!" Zoë asked, shaking her head.

"I'm sure he would." Ruth stated quietly, looking directly at Zoë. She opened her mouth, probably to disagree, then shut it just a fast.

Tom could sense the obvious tension and attempted to break it. "Besides, we all know Harry's history of taking his work home with him." He looked directly at Ruth. "It all works out in the end doesn't it?" He smiled slightly and she smiled softly back. "And we need to find a clean skin."

"I didn't sign up for this." Zoë told him as he stood to leave.

"Yes you did. I read the paperwork." He replied, feeling all their eyes on him as he strode out.

---

_1993.  
__St Cross Rd.  
__Oxford._

_Harry leant back in his chair, drumming his fingers. "So… you speak five languages. Your IQ is over 160 and you beat me at scrabble with the word." He leant forward. "_Money_." He elongated the word to emphasise the stupidity of losing with a 5 letter word. _

_Ruth shrugged. "Triple word score. Sorry."_

"_Well I'm never playing with you again." Harry joked with her._

_Ruth smiled widely at him. "Sore loser?"_

_Harry nodded. "Absolutely."_

"_Oh well." Ruth sighed dramatically. "I'll have to play with someone else." She paused and Harry could see her face redden slightly. As always he enjoyed it._

"_What do you say I treat you to dinner?" The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them._

_Ruth shrugged her shoulder but the redness remained. "Okay, it's not as if I've got anything else to do."_

_Harry paused for a moment and looked at her. "I am sorry about this you know."_

_Ruth nodded. "I know."_

"_But I promise you that I'm working on it. It's just safer for you to stay here."_

_Ruth nodded. "Where you can keep an eye on me." She added for him. _

_Harry couldn't disagree with her, she was right after all. He needed her close by, it gave him the upper hand with Mace and it meant he could attempt to work out what was going on. It also meant they could spend time together. Time that he enjoyed much more than he should._

"_That also." He told her simply. _

"_And Lucy's going to start asking questions soon." She told him. "What do you want me to say?"_

"_I don't mind. It would be better if she didn't ask questions. Tell her I'm your boyfriend or something like that. It'll explain why I meet you after classes." Harry was nothing if not logical._

_Ruth's blush had returned and Harry stood quickly, eagerly grabbing his coat. "So what do you want?"_

"_What do I want?" Ruth repeated, not understanding._

_Harry raised his eyebrows, smiling slightly. "With your chips… I'll go and get them."_

---

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

Tom was watching the screen, waiting for impatiently for Harry. His foot tapped softly on the meeting room floor as he kept his eyes on the boy in the interrogation room.

"Sometimes, in order to gain what we must have, we have to take risks. Firestorm tips the scales. It outweighs the risk of anything we might lose. And that includes my job." Harry told him as he walked into the room.

Tom moved his eyes from the screen towards his superior. "Harry?"

Harry sat down, leaning back in the chair. "The codes are gone, Tom. My time is up. I have to come clean."

Tom nodded, he knew it was what needed to be done, no matter the consequences. "You're telling Six." He stated needlessly.

"And the DG. I'm reporting to him at four." He stated, knowing and accepting his fate. "You make a mistake, you pay the price. Those are the rules. Firestorm is our priority now. We have to get it back."

Tom's eyes were drawn back to the screen. "We choose to do this job. JJ's a child. What choice are we giving him?"

Whatever reply Harry was about to give was interrupted by Ruth and Zoë entering the room.

Ruth look a breath before starting, her eyes glued to Harry as if she could see right through him. "I've checked the passenger list from the Chinese plane. A missile expert was on board. Dr Zheng Jing Hui."

Zoë continued but Ruth and Harry maintained their eye contact. "He called Hastings from the plane. A meeting's been arranged for tomorrow."

Harry looked away from Ruth and towards the screen.

"That boy has a photographic memory." He told them simply, looking at each of them in turn, his eyes lingering on Ruth's as she shook her head in disbelief.

"He's fourteen years old..." Tom started but Harry interrupted him.

"That's why no one would ever believe MI5 tasked him to steal anything." He spoke the truth but that didn't free him from stare of his soon-to-be-ex-wife.

Ruth had caught up fast, unsurprising considering she knew Harry's mind better than anyone else. Zoë was only just getting there.

"Your not serious Harry?" Zoë asked in disbelief.

Ruth stared at him forcefully, the anger and disappointment stemming from her was obvious. "Use a child as a clean skin?"

Harry spoke directly to her as he explained. "You think this would be the first time? Terrorists aren't the only ones to manipulate youth. It's all part of the game."

Ruth continued to shake her head. "The game? The same game as before? This is not a game Harry. This has never been a _game_. You're using a child as a pawn and it's disgusting."

"Do you have an alternative? Because if you think that there won't be consequences once I'm gone then you're very mistaken."

"No everything revolves around you." She replied scathingly.

Harry smiled, slightly smugly. "Oh you'd be surprised what does. You know as well as I do that as soon as I'm gone then so is this department."

"And you'd use anyone."

"For the good of the country."

"And for the good of Harry Pearce."

"They're not mutually exclusive Ruth." He looked away from her and shrugged at the other two. "If you can't think of an alternative, and fast, a 14-year-old is our best option."

Zoë followed Ruth from the room as Tom simply stared back at Harry.

---

_1993.  
__St Cross Rd.  
__Oxford._

"_You're the reason Kate left me you know?" Simon deadpanned._

"_And there was I thinking it was more to do with you shagging the nanny." Harry returned swiftly, eyebrows raised even though Simon couldn't see that over the phone line._

"_Yeah… that may have influenced her to." Simon conceded, sighing with boredom. "Malcolm's replacing me tomorrow though so maybe I'll get the chance to play with something more interesting."_

_Harry ignored him, letting his gaze fall onto the sleeping woman across the room. "Tell me you've got something." He needed something, anything to get them out of this place. He was much too comfortable; she'd gotten far too close to him. It just wasn't natural for him to be enjoying her company so much. It wasn't natural for him to want this to continue when he surely had much more important work back at Thames House. Yet Ruth, combined with Oliver Mace and whatever was going on there, was definitely something to ponder. _

"_Not unless you want me to lie through my teeth."_

"_Great. Just great." Harry tried to convince himself that having no leads wasn't a good thing. But he was still unnaturally pleased that they were getting nowhere. Which definitely wasn't a good thing. At all. _

"_So you're not getting anywhere either?" Simon asked, sounding only vaguely interested._

Getting somewhere_, was on the tip of this tongue but he didn't vocalise it. "Would we still be here if I had?" He said instead._

"_I'm actually not sure anymore." Simon returned. "You're far too happy doing nothing for my tastes."_

"_Shut up." Harry said simply. _

"_Shutting up."_

"_Look lets go back to the beginning." Harry started, not liking where Simon was going. "Could we have missed anything?"_

"_You mean the background check?" Simon asked._

"_Yes."_

_He could almost hear Simon's shrug. "You've got everything, the stupidly large file of transcripts of… everything. School records. College records. Doctors records. We've even got her father's death certificate. There's nothing else."_

"_There has to be."_

"_Look… maybe you're taking this too personally. Maybe she just scored high on a Six test."_

"_That's no reason to send Oliver Mace. He's too much of a desk spook now." Harry sighed. "What about family ties. Anything there?"_

"_Father's dead, obviously. Mother remarried. No siblings, only the stepbrother."_

"_And?" Harry pressed._

"_And they cleared because the brothers on protection duty for Princess Di."_

"_You mean we didn't recheck?"_

"_There was no need, waste of recourses." Simon stated simply._

_Harry felt something click inside him. "I want a complete background on the brother."_

"_You're sure?"_

"_Yes, completely… I've got a feeling, something she said earlier."_

"_If you've got a hunch then God help us all."_

"_A.S.A.P."_

"_As bloody always."_

---

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

"It all worked out in the end." Zoë stated, sitting down beside Ruth in the almost empty grid.

Ruth nodded, sighing despondently. "It's beneath us to use children. No matter what their intelligence." She spoke passionately.

Zoë nodded in agreement. "You're preaching to the already converted."

Ruth grinned slightly. "Sorry…"

Zoë smiled back. "It was the wrong thing to do but… at least it didn't _go_ wrong."

Ruth shook her head. "But it could have… and… it's alright for adults to do this job because we have a choice." She paused, remembering a time not so long ago. "If we have a choice… we choose to live our lives like this and that's fine because we decided that and we were willing to make the sacrifices but… that was just a kid and we didn't really give him a choice. Practically threatened him really and it was wrong."

"Ruth…" Zoë sighed. "I know it's not my place and… and I know we don't know each other very well but if you ever want to talk…" She trailed off, simply looking at the other woman.

Ruth smiled at her, nodding before looking quickly around the room. "My past… my life… is much to complicated for one simple conversation but… it almost happened to me."

"What did?" Zoë asked, not understanding.

"My recruitment is what most people would call a fiasco. If there was ever a reason for more interdepartmental communication then my case would be the perfect example of what happens when people keep secrets from each other." She took a breath. "The short story is that one day when I was in a library, minding my own business a man walks up to me and tells me that if I don't sign the official secrets act he'll kill my mother." She said it lightly, as if she wasn't talking about a death threat.

"What?" Zoë shook her head in disbelief. "Who was he?"

"He was Six… and I didn't sign. Mostly because I was so utterly terrified of this secret agent man that my hands were shaking too much."

"What happened?"

Ruth smiled genuinely. "Harry." She looked towards the closed blinds of his office. "I met Harry… or rather Harry met me. He sorted everything out. Eventually." She added quickly.

"So that's how you met?" Zoë enquired.

Ruth nodded. "Yes. Beginning of the story I suppose." She sighed heavily. "I never thought Harry was like him. But I didn't know _this_ Harry and I've been wrong before." She looked at Zoë quickly. "Anyway, must get going. Cats to feed." Zoë nodded, taking the heavy hint and moving away.

Ruth looked back at Harry's office for another moment before turning to the computer. She was about to shut it down when her eyes were drawn to an email she'd that had only just arrived.

She opened it quickly and skimmed through the paragraph.

_Dear Ruth_

_Your Secondment to MI5 is currently under review. Discussions with your Head of Sector, regarding your continued placement, are on-going and a decision will be made within 7 days, after which time you may be returned to GCHQ._

_Yours Sincerely_

_Simon Horwood – Liaison Officer_

"Shit." Her face fell and her eyes drifted once again to Harry's office.

---


	10. To Have and Have Not

"_You know Steve, you're not very hard to figure, only at times. Sometimes I know exactly what you're going to say. Most of the time. The other times... the other times, you're just a stinker."_

**- Marie 'Slim' Browning (Lauren Bacall) – To Have and Have Not (1944)**

---

**Part 9 – _To Have and Have Not_**

---

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

Ruth leant forward onto the table, her hands grabbing the back of her neck as she shook her head. "I know him far to well, I should have known he'd do this the moment I disagreed with him."

Zoë tried to reassure her. "Harry's no fool. You're good. He'll want to keep you here." It was the truth. Ruth was bloody good at her job, maybe even too good. So good she made it look easy.

Ruth sighed. "God I hope so. I don't want to go back to G.C.H.Q.. Too many bloody mathematicians for one thing and… and I've only just got used to…" She pulled back from Zoë, looking upwards and breathing deeply as Danny came through the door, file in hand.

"Hanson quit the Army three years ago. Claiming benefits ever since. Why hasn't he re-enlisted? The Army offer good incentives for experienced soldiers to join up again." He told them, oblivious to the moment he'd interrupted.

Ruth excused herself as quickly as possible. "Well... I'll just go read a North Korea Evening News or something..."

She headed off, leaving her paperwork on the table. Zoë shook her head at Danny.

"For a man whose job is all about observation, perception and intelligence, you just failed on all three counts," she told him.

Danny shrugged at her. "What?"

"Girl talk Danny. Maybe unravelling the mystery past of Ruth and Harry."

"You're as bad as Sam" he told her.

"Like you don't want to know… we could be uncovering an epic love story," she justified. "God knows it's far more interesting than our love lives."

"No it's not!"

Zoë shook her head. "And when exactly are you going to take Sam out?" She retaliated.

Danny eyed her. "I'm working on it" he told her simply.

"Well work harder. I bet I can get Ruth's life story before you and Sam even manage to get to the Thai." She leaned across the table. "Actually I could probably get Sam out quicker than you could."

Danny sighed wistfully. "Now there's the stuff of dreams."

Zoë smiled despite herself. "Shut up Danny," she told him good naturedly.

---

_1993.  
__Corpus Christi College.  
__Oxford._

"_Okay… I have a complete emotional crises here Ruth, you have to stop daydreaming about your…" Lucy trailed off and looked upwards in thought. "If he's old enough to be your father he can't be your _boy_friend can he?"_

"_He'd not old enough to be my father!" Ruth replied indignantly.  
_

"_What if he was your father?" Lucy's eyes widened in excitement as Ruth rolled hers. "Can you imagine…"_

"_I'd really rather not." Ruth interrupted her. "He's not my boyfriend anyway. I told you he's just a friend of the family."_

"_So what do you do in that dump he calls a flat then?" Lucy seemed genuinely confused. _

_Ruth shrugged. "Watch films… play scrabble…"_

"_Now that's a euphemism if ever I heard one" Lucy interrupted._

"_I meant it literally," she stated, but Lucy became very aware of the blush rising up Ruth's cheeks. "Stop lowering it to your level."_

"_I'll try." Lucy smirked. "But you can't tell me there's nothing going on."_

_Ruth sighed, looking around the library. "Okay… I'll tell you if you'll leave me alone." She bargained. _

"_Never." Lucy told her before nodding in agreement._

"_I'm being recruited by an intelligence agency," Ruth told her, genuinely worried about her reaction. She needn't have as Lucy started to laugh immediately._

"_You could have at least made it believable Ruth! Is he married, is that it?"_

_Ruth sighed. "Okay… he's married."_

"_Oh Ruth you shouldn't get involved with a married man. They hardly ever leave their wives!"_

_Ruth's mouth dropped open. "You've been with married men!" she replied, indignantly._

_Lucy nodded, it was the truth. "Which is why I know what I'm talking about. It's a bad idea."_

_Ruth stayed silent for a moment. "I'll think about it," she told her friend and that seemed to satisfy her. Desperate to get the conversation away from her, Ruth went back to the beginning. "What was your crisis?"_

"_Crisis?"_

"_You were talking about an emotional crisis?"_

"_Oh yeah. Do you think I should marry Justin or Gary? I mean Justin's the safer bet because Gary's far too moral to make it as a journalist… but then again I do actually love Gary whereas Justin's just a bit boring. Mum and dad would like him though…" She trailed off as she looked at Ruth's shell-shocked face. "What?"_

"_Married?"_

"_Yeah they both asked me at the weekend." She bit her lip. "It's a tough choice but I'm leaning towards Gary, what do you think?"_

_Ruth's mouth hung open as she nodded her head. "Okay."_

_If Lucy was getting married then surely it was a sign of a coming apocalypse. Hell had definitely just frozen over._

---

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

Zoë stretched out her muscles as she placed the phone back in the cradle. The words 'nuclear' 'fuel' and 'problem' in the same sentence always gave her a sense of annoying foreboding and this occasion was no different.

She had just managed to stand when she was cornered by Sam and Danny, who were apparently in the middle of an argument that involved… her.

"So we ask Zoë, she'll know."

She raised an eyebrow at the pair of them. "Ask Zoë what?"

The looked at her then back at each other with perfect comic timing. They'd probably make a good couple. The Danny elbowed Sam. Perhaps not. "Whether we should speak to Ruth about Harry's birthday."

"Why me?"

"Well you are all pally with her all of a sudden," Danny told her, as if that explained everything.

"One conversation does not make us best friends. I think we're holding off on the friendship bracelets." It wasn't that she didn't like Ruth. She did. Actually, everyone liked Ruth…but she was still an unknown quantity with a history that was slightly mysterious and a personal relationship with Zoë's superior.

"Look…" Sam levelled with her. "We've already asked Malcolm but if you so much as mention their names in the same sentence he clams up and goes off to find Colin."

Zoë sighed. She had much more important things to do than discuss the very interesting love lives of her colleagues. "Well you're not asking Harry's first wife for advice are you?" she reminded them.

Danny nodded. "You're right. Let's just ignore the whole still married thing and pretend they just work together."

"Now I have to go do that thing called work." She moved away from them and walked purposefully towards Harry's office. She could hear Ruth's voice before she even reached the door.

"…And I'm good at my job. Overworked, but bloody good… and I don't think it's fair if you're being influenced by our past…"

Harry shook his head, knowing she was about to pace. "No decision has been made yet…"

She'd already opened her mouth to interrupt him when Zoë burst into the room, a piece of paper in her hand. "Our R.M.T. source says there'll be a wildcat strike on West Midlands rail-lines within the next thirty minutes..."

Harry sighed. "What do they want now?"

"That's not the issue. A consignment of spent nuclear fuel was on its way to Dover by rail. It's about to grind to a halt, sitting in open countryside."

"Liaise with the Nuclear Authority. Get it moving again," Harry told her, as if this was a regular occurrence.

Zoë glanced between the pair before she tailored her next words to Ruth. "Good intel, thank you."

Ruth turned back to Harry, a smile on her face, as Zoë made a quick exit. "Good to see someone appreciates my work."

Harry sighed heavily. "Ruth _everyone_ appreciates your work."

---

_1993.  
__St Cross Rd.  
__Oxford._

"_All I'm saying is that it's not funny," he rationalized. _

_Ruth gestured to the screen. "Just because he's not running after someone with a truncheon."_

"_Now when have I ever said I liked Benny Hill?" Harry asked her._

"_It was the first thing I thought of," Ruth admitted._

"_I've never been so insulted," Harry deadpanned._

_Ruth smiled softly at him. "I'm sorry, I'll try to be less severe with the comparisons in the future."_

"_I'm sure you will."_

"_You liked it though."_

"_I have seen worse things."_

"_Good." She smiled even more._

"_Yes it is." Harry agreed._

_Ruth eyes fell to his hand, taking in the still-red burn. "Does that hurt?"_

_Harry shrugged, but her gaze stayed at his hand. Harry sighed, putting his hand to her chin, stroking it slightly. "No, it doesn't." She looked up at him, her eyes shining. "You still want to know don't you? Been bursting to ask me all week?" He smiled indulgently at her. "It's nothing interesting you know… sulphuric acid. Thrown at me, only caught my hand. Simple."_

_Ruth leaned her head against his hand. "So it's simple to have acid thrown at you?"_

"_It doesn't happen every day," Harry admitted. "But it's my job."_

"_Doesn't it scare you?" she asked softly, reaching to hold his free hand in hers._

"_Sometimes," Harry admitted, "but what scares me more is what would happen without people like me. You have no idea of the things that would have happened without us."_

_Ruth's head rocked forward in understanding. "No one does."_

_Harry nodded in return. "But you like to try," he told her, smiling and seeing her smile back in return._

_His eyes drifted down to her lips and he felt himself being drawn to her, just as he had from the first time they'd met. Just as he felt his head start to move, he was stopped by the ringing of the phone._

_He stood quickly, dropping his hand from her face and moving across the room._

_Harry sighed, partially from relief but more so from annoyance as he reached the phone. "What is it?" He asked sharply._

"_It's intrigue my friend." The familiar voice told him and he turned away from Ruth, lowering his voice._

"_What Simon?"_

"_Brother Peter has a lovely and very well known lady friend."_

"_Who?"_

"_You'll love this. One Angie Wells."_

"_The Angela Wells?"_

"_The one and only. Your girl's almost-sister-in-law is Spook royalty."_

"_Shit…" Harry thought back, remembering a rumour he'd heard not long ago. "Isn't the word that she's on the out?"_

"_Exactly… even I can connect those dots."_

"_Well fuck" He stated simply and, without completing the call, put down the phone._

---

_2003.  
__Thames House.  
__London._

The noise from the party was gone the moment the door shut. Harry's expression soon followed.

"How long's that been going on?" He asked, his tone icy and uncompromising.

Tom waited a moment before replying, weighing up his options before realising that he really didn't care anyway. "Not long."

Harry sighed. "What happened to you?"

"Who ordered Curtis' death?" Tom asked instead.

"That doesn't matter…" That was the point. To Harry it didn't matter, but to Tom it did. There were no lines anymore.

"Did you? Or were you taking instruction from someone else?"

"Curtis was out of control," Harry justified.

Tom disagreed. "I could have talked him down. He was ready to surrender... but getting Curtis to back down would have been a failure. They needed him removed forever."

"We neutralised a threat to national security. That's our job."

"What part did Corporal Woods play? Did he get a deal? Immunity? Promotion? He was a set up wasn't he? A plant from the M.O.D." It was a leap, but not a big one. It made a lot of sense.

"What if Curtis had been an international terrorist not a British Army Officer? You wouldn't question how we resolved the situation then."

What if, what if, what if. It was always a 'what if'."

"I misjudged him. Worse, I allowed myself to be used by the Government of the day for it's own ends. They wanted Curtis silenced and I was the blunt instrument. This country's Army would never mutiny. It does everything asked of it and more. Curtis was only trying to give them a voice…"

Harry interrupted him. "You got too close to the subject. Don't let personal feelings…"

"Personal feelings. I have personal feelings..." Tom shook his head.

"Then bury them. Because…" Harry continued.

"Screw. You. If the new world order means we're in the business of destroying anyone who questions the political agenda... then I'm in the wrong job… and you? You talking about personal feelings is ridiculous, yours are buried so deep I doubt they'd even work anymore…"

"Take a long weekend. Then put this operation behind you," Harry ignored him.

Tom did the same. "Shame on you, Harry. Shame on you for allowing us to be manipulated. Shame on you for being such a sanctimonious bastard that you can't see what's right in front of you. I'm surprised Ruth stuck it as long as she did, in fact maybe Jamie had a…" he stopped himself. That was too far. So far past the line he couldn't even see it anymore.

Harry's tone was as hard as steel. "It's over. I'll take your debrief another time. And as regards Mata Hari out there… no fraternising with foreign operatives, even if they're friendlies. You and I both know there's no such thing in our world."

"I will not…" Tom shook his head.

"Never question my decisions. Never speak about my family like that." He gestured to the Grid. "End it. I don't care how, I do care when. Next time I see you, you're a single man." He turned quickly and left, slamming the door as he went.

Tom stared out at Christine. Along time ago, before Ellie, before Jamie died he'd asked Harry what his choice would be, love or duty.

At that time Harry had both.

Right at that moment Tom didn't want either of them.

---


	11. Libeled Lady

_"Where did you go when you left us Bill?" - _Warren Haggerty_  
"Intelligence Department Warren, I always did like contrast." - _Bill Chandler

**- Spencer Tracey & William Powell, Libeled Lady (1936)**

**--- **

**Part 10 – _Libeled Lady_ **

---

_2003.  
Oxford Circus, North Side.  
London. _

"Hello stranger," the voice from behind her said sweetly, moving to kiss her on the cheek.

Zoë paused before replying; composing herself. "Tessa."

"We never had a chance to say goodbye properly did we Zoë?" Tessa smiled, as if greeting an old friend.

"I'm not big on fond farewells," Zoë told her quickly.

Tessa's smile remained. "Oh I rather like them." She paused a moment. "I was most disappointed at your decision. I thought you were a lot cleverer." Zoë stayed silent, knowing that if she gave an inch Tessa would take a mile. Tessa stayed though and, if possible, became even more smug. "How's Tom doing?"

"Tom's fine."

"Really? I would have thought Harry would have taken rather a dim view of interagency liaisons." She pursed her lips. "He always takes the high road even when he's as hypocritical as ever."

"If you want to discuss Tom and Harry then I suggest you organise your next rendezvous with them."

"What about Ruth then?" Tessa grinned. "Now that was a turn up, wasn't it? I'd have loved to have seen Harry's face when she walked in."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh Zoë." Tessa shook her head. "When you have a spare moment why don't you ask little Ruth about Oxford…"

"Tessa," Zoë interrupted, "I don't _care _about anything you have to say."

"Okay, let's eh… talk about Rafa."

"Rafa?" Zoë asked, playing dumb.

Tessa stayed smiling. "You're never going to turn Mariela Hernandez by playing happy families. I have clients in Spain that know a lot about Rafa. They can help you with some information that will have her dancing to your tune. In return, all that they require is that you let them dispose of Rafa at the end."

"I'll have to get back to you on that."

"All right. Get back to me when you've okay'd it with Tom and Harry." She stared at Zoë for a moment. "Say hello to Ruth for me? It's been a very long time since Raleigh."

Zoë kept her face guarded as Tessa walked away. She'd heard that name before and it was killing her not to ask more about it. "Tessa?" She called her back, letting her get closer before she spoke again. "I'd do it again. You know that, don't you? I've never once regretted that I reported you. It was a very painful thing to have to do but I have never doubted that I did the right thing when I reported you."

Tessa shook her head. "Ah Zoë, you're so like me in some ways. Always wanting the last word."

Zoë opened her mouth before closing it again quickly. She shook her head, smiling despite herself.

As Tessa walked away, Zoë couldn't stop herself from going over their conversation: _What the hell was Raleigh? _

---

_1993.  
University Parks.  
Oxford. _

_"So… are you going to let me join the club, Oliver?" Harry asked, throwing more bread at the poor, overfed ducks. _

_Oliver leaned back against the railing. "Why not? You're already there, aren't you Harry?" _

_"Apparently only partly… I know there's more going on than meets the eye." _

_"Your eye, you mean?" _

_Harry looked upwards. "What are you playing at?" _

_"Oh, you'd find out soon enough," Oliver replied. "Jools probably. Always likes to play favourites." _

_Harry shook his head. "Stop stalling." _

_"Oh Harry, seeing shadows even when there aren't any." _

_Harry clenched his fist around the slice of bread, wanting more than anything to wipe that smug smile off Oliver Mace's face. "You can't tell me this is a normal investigation." _

_"I've never tried to. I was truthful before. We want her. We think that with training she could be great," Oliver told him, playing innocent. Oliver Mace was a lot of things, but innocent was definitely not one of them. _

_"And lose her soul in the process?" Was he talking about Ruth now or himself? It was a fine line between them now. _

_"Perhaps…" Oliver agreed. "But it would be fun wouldn't it? I mean if you follow through, you'll never see her again. But if you let us take her you can carry on… whatever you're doing." _

_"Nothing's going on," Harry denied. It was an almost truth. _

_"Yes and Jools is joining the circus next spring. The Harry Pearce I know doesn't spend his valuable time prancing about with someone who'd have made an excellent hippy." _

_Harry shook his head. "Get it over with." It needed to end now. _

_Oliver took a breath, weighing up his options. "We may have… missed something in our previous… briefing." _

_"Namely?" _

_"Peter." _

_Harry nodded. "I thought so." _

_"He's in love with her." _

_Harry didn't let his surprise show. "And that matters because?" _

_Oliver pursed his lips. "His… lady friend… is aware of that and we, as in 6, are a little worried she's about to… go on the blink." _

_"So you're following Ruth because?" _

_Oliver sighed, deciding to take a different route. "Peter told Jools that his 'Ruthie' had read Tolstoy in seven languages, not including English. When Jools wanted something on little Peter, Ruth Evershed fitted the bill. He wanted to force Peter into leaving Angela… to get her over her episode, but all he could find on Ruth were library fines: not exactly blackmail material. Then he reads a student thesis and determines that someone who could make the Armenian Revolution interesting must be talented, and his interest was sparked beyond any concerns for the girl's safety or Angela's mental health. The more we look at her the more we like her Harry… she's almost perfect. Do you know her real IQ?" _

_"I don't really care." He didn't and he didn't really want to know either. It was becoming harder and harder to justify his opinion. _

_"176." _

_"Then send her to GCHQ." _

_Oliver shook his head. "How many Classics graduates do you know that can spot a 6 tail without 6 training?" _

_"So? She's bright." More than bright, he knew that. He just wished she wasn't. _

_"Oh Harry… I think she's rubbing off on you, or maybe that's just your wishful thinking." _

_"Charming as ever." _

_Oliver dropped the act, his face quickly becoming serious. "She'll be wasted as a sleeper." _

_Harry did the same, moving from the barrier so they stood facing each other. "Better that than with you." _

_"Ouch… a little personal Harry." _

_"And you're so professional. You made her think she was being followed day in day out," Harry reminded him. _

_Oliver shrugged. "Well she is." _

_"Why? Because a Royal Bodyguard's got a crush on his little sister? Or because Angie Wells doesn't like to lose?" Harry raised his eyebrows, daring Oliver to lie to him. _

_Mace sighed. The time for holding cards was over. "She's close to losing it Harry," Oliver told him honestly. "All the classics: over involvement, personalising, lack of composure…" _

_"I thought so…" Harry sighed. "I'm telling you now, I'm _warning _you. She sleeps. _Now_." _

_Oliver shook his head. "And what if we're right about Angela? Do you really want to risk it?" _

_"So she kills her sister-in-law in a fit of rage? Angela Wells is a cold hearted bitch, she's far more likely to castrate him, so I'd focus there if I were you," he added, glad that he wasn't. _

_"Jools won't like it." _

_"He doesn't have a choice," Harry told him, walking away. _

_"And you?" _

_"I'll speak to the DG. This is over Oliver," he turned back. "You lost. Get over it." He turned and walked away, leaving Oliver to stew on his own defeat. _

---

_2003.  
Chancery Lane.  
__London. _

"And it is our suggestion that the house be put on the market and the proceeds be divided equally." Harry took in her words as he watched Ruth across the table.

Harry looked quickly at Ruth, catching her gaze before nodding at his lawyer in acceptance.

"We agree," he spoke for Harry, taking note of the summary.

Harry moved his gaze back to Ruth, staring at her. It was her house more than his really. She was the one that had seen it; she'd wanted it; she'd spent days up there with Jamie…

He shook himself, speaking for the first time. "You can have it if you want Ruth." He spoke directly to her, ignoring their supposed speakers.

Ruth shook her head even as Harry saw her lawyers mouth turn upwards at his suggestion. "I can't Harry."

"Why not? You love that place… said it reminded you of your father," he reminded her, even though he was sure she'd never forget.

Ruth smiled slightly. "I think that was more about the books and trees than the actual building."

Harry shook his head. "Maybe but… it was your home Ruth."

Ruth shook her head back at him. "It was _our_ home Harry," she told him instead. They held each others gaze as the lawyers shook their heads at each other.

Before they could continue with the probably futile attempt to progress at all with drawing up the necessary paperwork, they were interrupted by not one, but two phones.

Their clients shared a quick glance.

"Work emergency," Harry stated, not even looking at the message. "We'll have to continue another time." He stood quickly, moving away from the table.

Ruth nodded, standing as well. "Sorry about this," she apologised. "Next month okay?"

They nodded quickly. "We'll confirm later," Patrick Kennedy told her.

As they left, Harry opening the door for his almost ex-wife, Liz Smith rolled her eyes and shook her head. "If this one makes it to court, I'll eat my hat."

Her usual rival nodded. "It's almost like we're marriage guidance," Kennedy agreed, gathering his papers. "Got anything else today?" he enquired, making conversation.

"Wronged husband next. She'll be lucky to get out with more than the clothes off her back."

"Sounds fun."

"Its a lot more fun when they hate each other, don't you find?"

"Oh definitely. I've got a cheated wife next. Almost clawed his eyes out at the preliminary hearing."

"Do you think they stare at each other like that wherever they work?" Patrick wondered aloud.

"Probably. I feel sorry for whatever pencil pushers they work for."

"Definitely," he agreed once more.

Liz stopped her packing and walked towards the window. "Huh."

"What?" he asked, confused.

"Just checking for snow," she stated, simply, before turning back to him. "You know… cause hell's just frozen over now that you've agreed with me more than once."

Patrick nodded. "Its strange… lets not agree again?" he suggested.

Liz nodded. "No problem," she grabbed her briefcase from the desk.

"Next month?" he put his hand out for her to shake.

"If they make it that long, then I'll see you," she replied, neither of them were convinced as they shook hands quickly and departed.

---

_1993.  
University Parks.  
Oxford. _

_"Whatever it takes, I really don't care." He held the phone close to his ear, it wasn't a safe line but he really didn't care. _

_"There's no denying they were overzealous Harry but …" _

_Harry shook his head, interrupting the DG. He didn't care about protocol, that was completely unimportant now. "But nothing. They went too far. You've got what you wanted." _

_He could hear the smirk over the line. "Felt good didn't it?" _

_Harry paused before replying. It felt anything but good to him at that moment. "As always," he replied instead or, rather, lied instead. _

_"So we win and they get nothing." _

_Harry couldn't help but agree. "Make sure 6 keep their word," he added. _

_"I will, she's a valuable asset for the future Harry. Even 6 aren't going to jeopardise that." _

_"I'm not just worried about 6." Harry told her honestly. _

_"We can keep Malcolm up there… surveillance, keep track of her. The usual." _

_"Not for Ruth," Harry told her immediately, "other than the basic checks. But if 6 are that worried about Wells then we need to pay extra attention to her." _

_There was a pause. "I agree." _

_"Good." _

_"I've got an interesting one for you next Harry, Tess has been working on this for awhile." _

_"Excellent," Harry replied, his heart not really in it. He didn't want to think about the next _one_ because that meant this _one_ was truly over. He wasn't ready to completely face that fact just yet. _

_"You'll report tomorrow?" _

_Harry nodded to himself as he replied. "Of course."_

_Denial would only get him so far. _

_---_

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London. _

Harry sat alone in his office, a bottle of scotch his only companion, apart from the video playing before him. Tessa halfway through one of her speeches.

"Durbeyfield or D'Urberville. There's a fine line. You make decisions and somehow the consequences of those decisions just keep unraveling. It's interesting though isn't it Harry? We all make mistakes but some of us seem to pay more than others. I suppose the difference between us was the simple fact that you had everything and I nothing. Durbeyfield, I suppose. Now we've both got nothing and I'm going to have to reinvent myself again, but God knows we've all had enough practice at that."

Harry reached for the bottle, pouring the liquid to a higher level than usual.

"What do you think Harry?" She wondered aloud, knowing that she'd never get an answer. "Am I Durbeyfield or D'Urberville? Are you Angel or Alec? I suppose I'll never know. Maybe you're both, like two sides of a coin. You were a better person as Angel but I always liked you more as Alec. But that says more about me than it does about you doesn't it?" she paused on the screen as Harry stopped the tape.

"Goodbye Tess," he told her image before pressing stop.

As her face dissolved into static he turned away from the screen and looked out onto the empty Grid, his eyes straying to Ruth's empty desk.

---


	12. The Thin Man

"_I'm a hero. I was shot twice in the Tribune."_ - Nick Charles  
_"I read where you were shot 5 times in the tabloids." _- Nora Charles  
_"It's not true. He didn't come anywhere near my tabloids."_ -Nick Charles

**William Powell & Myrna Loy, The Thin Man (1934)**

**---**

**Part 11 – **_**The Thin Man**_

---

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London._

Ruth was many things, but ignorant was not one of them. Normally.

Today she was ignorant of the bombshell she was delivering.

"Oh… Harry, I've been onto the FBI like you asked me. And this American Criminal?" She looked at the telex before her, smiling at the stupidity. "Michael 'The Shark' Karharias - amazing what they call themselves - well, he's dead."

Harry stared at her, his face turning to stone.

Ruth continued unabated. "The FBI had a tip off. His body was found in a storm drain in Miami, three days ago."

He was still staring at her.

He breathed deeply, speaking in his usual enigmatic terms. "So, Tom saw a dead man arrive at Heathrow." He looked at her as she stared at him in confusion. "I must talk to you. Privately."

---

_1993.  
University Parks.  
Oxford._

_He didn't face her. He couldn't, even though he knew she was looking straight at him, her eyes a strange combination of ice and fire. _

"_No conspiracy," he said simply._

"_What?" Ruth replied._

"_You're not involved in some 6 conspiracy," he told her, trying to keep the explanation as truthful and simple as possible, yet knowing he couldn't keep everything from her. Not anymore. _

_She shook her head in confusion. "What are you talking about?"_

_Harry turned to face her slowly, turning his body and leaning into the back of the bench. "I thought… I thought 6 had some kind of ulterior motive for you. But… they didn't."_

"_Me?" Ruth shook her head in disbelief. _

"_It was all a coincidence," Harry smiled at her softly, his finger reaching across to touch hers tenderly. "You don't need to know the in's and outs but… you were noticed." _

"_How?"_

"_Your brother."_

"_Peter?" she asked rhetorically, shifting slightly at the mention of him. It was unnoticeable to most people but to Harry it was as obvious as a police siren. An uncomfortable air emanated from her that he desperately wanted to calm. But he didn't._

"_He made a throwaway comment to the wrong person," Harry explained further. It wasn't a lie, it just wasn't the whole truth._

_Ruth kept her eyes on his. "Why did they…"_

_Harry swallowed slightly, knowing he couldn't tell her that whole truth. "Protection," he told her, instead. It was a truth, of sorts._

_He could almost see the wheels turning inside her head, but she didn't ask the obvious question. He'd known she wouldn't._

_She knew instinctively that he couldn't tell her anymore. He loved that about her; that she'd never ask things that he couldn't tell her. "But you thought it was more?" she asked quietly, looking towards their fingers and lightly touching his with hers. _

"_Yes," he told her simply, his gaze on her._

"_Is that the only reason you…" she trailed off as he turned his hand, opening his palm to her. She swallowed before looking up at his eyes. _

"_No." It was quick and fierce. Truthful. _

_Ruth nodded, dropping her hand into his, still staring into his eyes. "Okay."_

_Harry breathed deeply but kept looking at her, afraid that if he looked away for even a moment he'd lose his nerve. "But you're my agent Ruth."_

_As always, she seemed to understand him immediately. She smiled at him sadly. "Only a sleeper, right?"_

_Harry mirrored her expression. "That's actually worse… it basically defeats the purpose of you even being one."_

_Ruth shook her head. "So what now?"_

"_I go back to my world and you to yours."_

"_Oh…" she trailed off, her eyes drifting once again to their entwined hands. _

"_It's not my choice Ruth."_

_Her eyes moved quickly towards his. "No… no of course not."_

"_I have to go now," he told her but it was Ruth who moved her hand from his grasp and he felt a sense on loss within him. "You don't even know my __name__." _

_Her hands were clenched into fists and she replied. "No, I don't." _

"_I'll miss you, don't ever doubt that." _

_Ruth nodded at him but she could see her withdrawing into herself. "Just not enough right?"_

_Harry shook his head as she stood. "Ruth don't…" _

_She raised her hand to stop him grabbing it. "No… _you_ don't_._" She moved away from him. "I have a lecture. I know that you know that."_

"_I'll look out for you."_

_Ruth nodded. "Big Brother is watching?" she joked, poorly._

"_Why not?" Harry shrugged, attempting levity before continuing solemnly. "Goodbye Ruth."_

_She nodded but didn't reply. Instead, she simply turned and walked away from him. _

_It wouldn't be the last time he'd watch her walk away from him._

---

_2003.  
__Albert Embankment.  
__London._

They were sitting on a bench.

Again.

Ruth was about to comment on their affinity for benches when Harry finally spoke, breaking the unusually comfortable - if tense - silence.

"I think Tom Quinn is on the blink," he stated simply.

Ruth stared at him for a moment. "Not Tom."

But Harry could justify himself. "He's been running an op on his own. For his own purposes. And I'm having nightmares about what they are." The worst was that it made sense. Made crazy Spook sense.

"What are you saying? He's acting against the interests of the service?"

Harry pursed his lips. "Yes."

"Harry, Tom Quinn is your brightest and best." She didn't want to believe it.

"It's the brightest and best who can go bad so spectacularly." He looked at her. "You know that."

Ruth nodded in reply. She'd seen it before, they both had and it was nothing if not spectacular.

"But this is Tom, Harry…" She stopped herself from saying something stupid; like 'we had him over for dinner', 'he bought Jamie a football' or 'he stayed with me all night when you were missing in Israel'.

"I know." It made it infinitely worse. "That's why I know how bad it could be."

She didn't doubt that for a moment. Tom was far too… capable. "What are you going to do?"

"Issue a warrant for Tom Quinn's arrest. The police will pick him up on an anti-terrorism charge."

"This is going to be so ugly."

"I know. You stand by me in this, Ruth?"

There was no thought. No need for any. The answer would always be the same.

Ruth trusted Harry more than she trusted herself.

"Yes."

---

_1993.  
Merton Street.  
Oxford._

_She was sobbing into her pillow like a schoolgirl when her supposed best friend finally turned up, somehow getting inside the flat and sitting on her bed before Ruth even realised someone had arrived._

"_Oh Ruth… I told you he wouldn't leave his wife…" were the first words out of her mouth and Ruth would have laughed on any other occasion because only Lucy would start off comforting someone by commenting on the fact that she'd been right all along._

_Except, Jerry - or whatever his real name was - didn't have a wife as such. Just an older woman with an extreme level of power and the nickname 'MI5'. "Yep his _wife_…" The other woman from hell._

"_You're too good for him," Lucy told her, putting a comforting arm around her as Ruth sat up on the bed. _

"_Thanks…" It did make her feel better. Not much, but slightly. _

_There was a silence that followed, broken only by Lucy's occasional remarks about how useless every man on the planet was._

"_I'm marrying Gary," she added, as if an afterthought. Like it wasn't a life changing decision. Ruth was more surprised that she'd actually _made_ a decision._

"_Really?" She tried to sound at least slightly less sceptical than she actually was, but she didn't succeed. _

_Lucy nodded. "Yep… want to be a bridesmaid?"_

"_Okay," Ruth nodded. _

"_Want to be maid of honour?"_

"_Okay," Ruth kept nodding. _

"_Want to plan the hen party?"_

_She really didn't, but when had she ever been able to say no to Lucy? "Yes." _

_Lucy smiled at her, for once showing an understanding of someone else's feelings. "Men are stupid you know, all of them, even the one I'm getting hitched to?"_

_Ruth nodded, a slight smiled on her face. "I do… it's just… I think I love him…" If she was honest there wasn't really a 'think' about it._

"_And him?"_

"_Maybe the same." She thought that he might but at the same time, how could you ever be sure? There was only one person who'd ever said they loved her before and that had been an unmitigated disaster as soon as he'd uttered the words: because as soon as you said them they were out there and you could never take them back. _

"_What are you gonna do?"_

"_There's nothing I can do… I'll never see him again anyway." She hoped to God she was wrong._

---

_2003.  
Cottage.  
Norfolk Fenland._

Danny lifted the phone slowly to his ear, watching Harry's prone body being pushed into the waiting ambulance.

His face remained in shock as he listened over the phone line.

She didn't speak but he knew who it was.

"He's breathing," he said simply. The words sounded foreign to his ears as he continued. "Left side. Shotgun."

The closing doors jarred him and he looked to Zoë. She just stared at the leaving ambulance.

"There are clothes on the shoreline," Ruth told him, her voice small and quiet.

"Ruth…"

"Just get to the shore," she interrupted quickly.

"Ruth… it's bad," he tried again.

There was silence before she replied. "Don't."

"On the beach?" he asked her finally.

"Yes," was her only reply before the line went dead.

He knew that Ruth was sobbing at a desk in London. That Harry was lucky to still be alive. That he and Zoë were very close to loosing there whole careers.

And it was all because of a man called Tom Quinn.

At that moment he wanted nothing more than Tom Quinn to be dead.

---


	13. My Man Godfrey

"_These flowers just came for you, miss. Where shall I put them?" _– Godfrey  
"_What difference does it make where one puts flowers when one's heart is breaking?" _– Irene  
"_Yes, miss. Shall I put them on the piano?" - _Godfrey

**- William Powell & Carole Lombard - My Man Godfrey (1936)**

---

**Part 12 – **_**My Man Godfrey**_

---

_2003.  
Thames House.  
London._

She could hear Sam in the background as she held the phone close to her ears. "Who's given you authority to… would you get your hands off my files!"

After what seemed like an age, Zoë finally answered, and Ruth continued. "You and Danny had better get back here." She turned quickly as Malcolm rushed passed her. "Special Branch plods are turning the place over."

"What! On whose authority?"

"They say the Joint Intelligence Committee have launched an investigation…" She shook her head again. "But can the JIC do that? So fast?" _Probably not_, she stated to herself.

"Tell Harry," Zoë implored her.

She was about to reply when her eye caught the pod doors opening and she saw an unwelcome face from the past. "Oh no." They made eye contact and she saw the beginnings of that all familiar smirk.

"Ruth?" Zoë spoke her name and that jarred her back from that cold January in Oxford.

She turned her back on him but knew she was coming her way. She could feel his presence.

"The Chairman of the JIC just walked in. Doghouse. Now." She closed her eyes as the phone was removed from her hand and placed back in the cradle.

"No more calls please." He directed his voice to the whole room and yet still managed to speak directly to Ruth at the same time. An impressive quality. She looked up at him as he continued. "I'm launching an investigation, sanctioned by Downing Street." He looked down at her, the smirk growing. "So you are all suspended." His eyes remained cold. "I'm afraid this is going to be something of a bloodbath."

Ruth turned away from him, moving towards the others. She was stopped by his voice.

"Ruth darling… it's been much too long…"

She didn't reply. Instead she moved away again.

"Not long enough."

Forever wasn't long enough.

---

_1994.  
University Parks.  
Oxford._

_Why she'd come here she wasn't sure. _

_Especially not when it was so cold that she couldn't even concentrate on her book._

_Why was she reading Jane Austen anyway? She did like Persuasion a lot though. It was so… internal. The happy ending also helped a lot._

_Appropriate for her current situation anyway. _

_She'd given up her Maid of Honour duties and let Lucy sort out her own hen night. Ruth wasn't exactly in the party mood; she was pathetically depressed. In any case Lucy was better at that sort of thing anyway, having spent most of the last 5 years at some kind of party or another. Ruth tended to only turn up when she was dragged or persuaded to by Lucy and Gary. _

_She'd gone home for Christmas. Massive mistake. One that wouldn't be repeated again. She'd told her mother she was thinking about quitting her masters and she'd received a lecture like she was five years old and not in control of her own life. She loved her mother dearly; she just didn't like her very much._

_But now, she was back in Oxford. _

_Back on a bench. With a book._

_But the wrong companion._

"_I know who you are," she told him as soon as he sat beside her._

"_That does put us on an even footing I suppose." He turned towards her and she was proud of herself when she barely flinched at his stare._

"_I know you can't do anything to me," she pressed on, staring straight back at him. _

_He smiled at her. "You made an interesting decision Miss Evershed."_

"_Did I?"_

"_Very interesting."_

"_Well I'm sure you'll get over it." She moved to stand, when his hand grabbed her arm and made sit back down. "You can't touch me," she repeated, her voice wavering slightly._

"_You'll regret your decision," he told her firmly, moving closer to her. _

"_I don't think so."_

"_You will. In time," he added, letting go of her hand and letting her stand. "It's a waste of talent."_

"_You know nothing about me," she told him instead, breathing deeply._

"_You're very wrong Ruth. Just like your little… friend… I know everything about you. Only difference is that I'm being honest with you."_

_She swallowed as she stared at him. "Interesting kind of honesty," she commented._

_He smiled smugly. "You'll change your mind."_

"_Are you threatening me?" she asked him._

"_Just commenting. Last chance."_

_Ruth moved her bag onto her shoulder. "Not interested," she told him as she moved away._

"_We're all the same in this business Ruth. Are you sure you picked right side?"_

_She didn't reply as she walked quickly away from him. She definitely wasn't shivering from the cold._

---

_2003.  
__Royal London Hospital.  
London._

Ruth walked quickly along the corridor, feeling the presence behind her and knowing what that meant.

She stopped outside the room and looked quickly through the window. Inside, she could see him lying in the hospital bed.

Ruth hated hospitals but she knew that Harry hated them even more.

She steadied herself before reaching for the door handle. But the door didn't open. It was locked.

She jumped slightly as a man appeared behind her. She knew immediately who'd posted him there.

"Can I help you?" he asked, a fake and slightly chilling smile on his face.

"I've come… to see… Mr Pearce." She stuttered slightly, intimidated.

"No visitors today," was the firm reply.

Ruth stared up at him for a moment, contemplating her next move. Then her eyes were drawn to the white coated man walking along the corridor.

She smiled at him. "Excuse me, I'd just like to see Mr. Pearce for a moment."

The doctor took in the tall officer standing beside her. "The same Mr. Pearce with the gunshot wound?" he inquired, not appearing even slightly intimidated by the presence beside her.

Ruth smiled genuinely and didn't even flinch as she removed her driving licence from her bag and showed it to both men. "You see, I'm his _wife_."

---

_1994.  
Crowne Plaza.  
Birmingham._

"_He mopes about like a 5-year-old who's lost his favourite toy," Tess commented, laying back on the oversized bed. _

"_You wouldn't think he was a grown man, would you?" Simon replied, dropping to sit down beside her. _

_Harry moved swiftly into the room, ignoring both of them. _

"_Definitely not," Tess agreed, enjoying the situation far too much. "This is the worst marriage I've ever had," she added._

"_Ah well… it's more interesting than watching Oliver Mace eat an omelette," Simon stated philosophically. "And there's the Serbian situation nearing a conclusion. Should be fun."_

"_It always amazes me that you find international arms deals amusing Simon," Harry told him. "It's also interesting to me, Tess, how you got your information on Nevotic?"_

"_Deal bartering Harry… while you were off playing saviour, some people actually had work to do."_

_Harry stared down at her. "Well I'm glad you got in a lot of practice."_

"_Are you insulting me Harry? Or complementing? It's so hard to tell with you."  
_

"_Both," Simon interrupted them, moving between them. _

_Harry sighed, adjusting his bow tie. "Lets get moving."_

"_He's so forceful lately, isn't he Simon?" Tessa spoke, pulling down her evening gown and moving off the bed._

"_You could say that," Simon told her as he reached for his suitcase from under the bed. _

"_And I will," she replied, moving for the door._

_Harry moved passed her. "Let's just get this over with. If there's one thing I hate, it's being wined and dined by mass murderers."_

"_See, I always find that's the best part," Tessa added._

"_You would," Harry told her dismissively._

_He grabbed Tessa's arm, practically dragging her to the lift. "Isn't it a pity that my hairs the wrong shade of brown for you."_

---

_2003.  
Royal London Hospital.  
London._

She'd got in.

Eventually.

Having charmed a consultant definitely helped. That and the fact that she was still Harry's next of kin.

This was how she found herself sat beside his hospital bed, though definitely not for the first time. She'd had a lot of practice. Only this time, her mind was focused on only 2 things.

The first was the note she'd written him that was securely in her pocket.

The second was whether she should hold his hand.

She hadn't had a lot of practice at ex-wife etiquette. She wanted to hold his hand but did he want her to? What about if a nurse walked in and saw her not holding his hand? Surely if she was supposed to be his wife, she should be holding his hand!?

They hand held hands a lot before… everything.

Taking a breath, she moved her hand towards his, touching his fingers with hers just as he had back on that bench in Oxford all those years ago.

It felt right.

She released the breath she hadn't known she was holding and looked to his face as he began to stir.

He looked at her, his eyes taking time to focus. "Ruth."

He whispered her name softly and she smiled at him. "You got shot… again."

Harry breathed heavily. "First shotgun blast though. I do like my variety." He looked at her, then stared at her, like he could see into her very soul. He breathed heavily as he reached with his hand to touch her cheek. "I always make you cry."

It was only then that Ruth noted the stinging of her eyes and the wetness of her cheeks that he was wiping away. She closed her eyes and leaned into his hand. "Only because you're always getting shot and blown up and…" She stopped herself from going any further.

"Are you alright?" he asked her.

Ruth felt like laughing but couldn't make herself. "I'm not the one who's been shot!"

"Ah… this is nothing." He waited for her to open her eyes. "I've had much worse, as you well know," he reminded her. They smiled softly at each other before he dropped his hand back from her face.

The moment was broken.

Ruth swallowed, reaching into her bag for a tissue and something else. She wiped her eyes quickly, before moving her other hand down to his, surreptitiously passing the small slip of paper to him.

Their hands barely touched but it was enough to make her pause before she stood to leave.

"I have a meeting." She smiled at him. "An old friend is in town by the way. Always causing trouble is little Oliver."

Harry's face hardened as he nodded in understanding.

As soon as she left, he took one look at the note she'd passed him before summoning the nurse.

He needed a phone.

---

_1994.  
Herculaneum Dock.  
Liverpool._

_Simon tried desperately to focus on the screen before him. Finally he gave up and looked at the man opposite him. "This is ridiculous." _

_Harry looked up in surprise. "What now?"_

"_I'll tell you… dead people are better company." _

_Harry looked away. "I'm concentrating."_

"_You've been like a bear with a sore head for months. You're distracted…" he continued before Harry could reply. "Don't deny it, I know you far to well and after the hotel debacle last month you've go no excuse."_

"_That was Tessa." _

"_It was both of you," Simon returned._

_Harry sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Jackson retires soon."_

_Simon shrugged. "And?"_

"_And I'm too old for this," Harry replied._

"_If you're too old for this then so am I."_

_Harry nodded. "Well… that's probably right."_

_Simon didn't rise to the bait. "Don't think that nobody's noticed. If you don't play it down people are going to put 2 and 2 together and check the dates."_

_Harry leant forward, his face hard. "This has nothing to do with her."_

_Simon smirked back at him. "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that." Simon leant towards him. "Besides I'm not the only one who can audit your surveillance requests… they'll notice the pattern if you keep this up."_

_Harry sighed. "I'll take that into consideration."_

"_Good." Simon nodded. "Because people will talk and it'll be just like Barry Mitchell."_

"_Mitchell had a heart attack."_

"_And went to Tring," Simon reminded him._

"_To recover," Harry interrupted, getting the point._

"_And never came back," Simon completed. "And everyone knew about him and that Ruskie."_

"_So?"_

"_So unless you stop playing stalker and get some perspective you'll be next."_

_Harry sighed. "I know," he admitted reluctantly. "I just…" His eyes strayed to the surveillance screen and his eyes widened. "Fuck." He reached for his radio but only found static._

"_What?" _

_Harry moved swiftly across the room and tried the landline._

_Nothing. _

_Not even a dial tone._

_Simon had quickly cottoned on to what was happening. "They're jamming us aren't they? They know we're here!"_

"_Shut up!" Harry shouted, moving towards the door, the only legitimate access point. He knelt down to the keyhole, careful to keep his movements silent. _

_There was nothing for a moment, but then he saw movement at the end of the hallway. Harry turned quickly. "Get down!" He shouted to Simon in futility._

_But before Simon could do anything the door blew open and smoke filled the room, followed almost immediately by the familiar sound of gunfire._

_---_

_2003.  
Heron Quays Station.  
London._

A rendezvous at a secret location. She'd read books like that, although they generally didn't occur because your husband had been shot by someone you'd considered a friend.

At least no book Ruth could remember reading had, and she had read extensively. Harry always told her she read too much…and then he'd buy her a book as a present.

It was a good spot, only a drunken beggar nearby. There were a lot of homeless in London, but Ruth's eyes strayed to him longer than to most. But she couldn't afford distraction as she noted Malcolm and Sam's arrivals.

As they congregated in the middle of the space, Ruth took a look around, shoving her hands into her pockets in a feeble attempt to dispel the coldness seeping through her. It wasn't all related to the temperature.

"So did we all shake our tails?" Zoë asked as soon as they were all assembled.

Malcolm sounded ridiculously proud as he stated, "they had three on me."

"Had to do the taxi trick." Harry had taught her that one. It was an oldie but it still worked. She hadn't used it just for nostalgia purposes.

"I biked all over," Sam told them.

Danny ignored her. "So the Chairman of the JIC is stomping around Thames House going through all our files, down to old apple cores in our desks ... And we've got to sneak off here just to talk! I mean what the hell is going on?"

"So what's Oliver Mace doing?"

"Maybe he thinks you all helped Tom," Sam suggested.

"That's so stupid, Sam." Zoë told her, a little too forcefully.

Sam recoiled and Ruth was about to defend the logical suggestion when Danny intervened for her.

"Maybe... not stupid."

"So Ruth conspired with Tom to shoot her own husband? Get real Danny."

Danny shook his head. "I'm not saying that's what happened. Maybe that's what this is about. What do we know about Oliver Mace? Has he ever done any real spying?"

"Was MI6 before going over to chair the JIC. Got the reputation as desk spook." Zoë certainly knew the basics. But that didn't really mean anything if you'd never met him. Never been threatened by him.

"Oh no… the worst." Danny agreed.

"But I heard he's got a hidden past as a quizmaster. Northern Ireland." Zoë added.

Malcolm simply looked towards Ruth before prompting her with a simple raised eyebrow.

She sighed as the others caught the exchange and turned quickly to her. "He steps over the line. When he was in Kosovo three Serb agents died in detention." She paused, reluctant to reveal more than was absolutely necessary. "He's a very dangerous man. He never stops. He's very good and he and Harry have a rivalry that goes back a decade."

"And he's treating us like traitors, suspending us, having us followed..." Zoë continued.

"I smell the stench of deep politics," Ruth stated.

"The question is how do we stop him?" Zoë asked, seeming to step ably into the role of leader.

"Tail him. Get some dirt on him," Danny suggested, somewhat naively.

Ruth shook her head, knowing that was a futile suggestion. "He's untouchable. We'd never get near him."

"Then we'll take his big stick away," Danny replied, an idea springing to him.

"What do you mean?" Zoë voiced what everyone was thinking.

"Prove Tom was innocent." He said it simply, like it was an easy thing to do.

But Tom shot Harry at close range. It wasn't an accident. He'd made that choice, he'd pulled that trigger and whatever the reasons, good or bad. Ruth couldn't forgive him for that.

"But he wasn't, God forgive me... but he wasn't. He was accused of murder and treason and he shot Harry to get away!"

"We don't know why he shot Harry, not really. I think we need to speak to Christine Dale. Maybe Tom talked to her."

The beggar she'd spotted earlier had moved closer to the group, talking loudly, annoyingly. "Can yer spare some change for a cup of tea or somethin'?"

"Please just go away," Malcolm told him, as he bumped into them, interrupting a conversation that finally appeared to be getting somewhere.

But then his voice changed quickly and he spoke directly to the young blonde. "Sam. They've got a tracker device on you. Get rid and get out now. And I bet there's another one on your bike." He quickly caught Ruth's eye and smiled at her in recognition. "Hello Mrs Pearce," he greeted her, quickly, before peeling away.

They all moved quickly, checking both Sam and the bike.

"Oh I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." Sam continued to apologise.

"Got it!" Malcolm shouted, triumphant before throwing the small device away.

As they quickly dispersed Zoë walked with Ruth. "Who the hell was that?"

Ruth smiled slightly. "Guardian angel?"

Zoë smiled in return. "Harry?"

Ruth nodded. "Harry."

---


	14. The Public Enemy

**A/N - Okay I dont normally bore people with this kinda stuff but a gap this long needs explanation. Basically I had a family situation involving my wife and although everything worked out really well in the end I've just had alot of problems getting into the head of 2 grieving parents when it hits a little to close to home. **

**That said I'm still really interested in this story and providing people are still interested in it as well I'm gonna continue writing it. **

**---**

**Part 13 – **_**The Public Enemy**_

**---**

"_I ain't so tough."_

**- Tom Powers (James Cagney) – The Public Enemy (1931)**

---

_2003.__  
__Thames House.__  
__London._

Harry held court before the group at the centre of the Grid.

"I've put Mr Mace off until tomorrow, so we work quickly."

"What's going on, Harry?" Danny asked. Harry wanted to know that himself.

"Yes, at the station, there was this tramp..." Malcolm began. Harry barely listened as he moved slightly and then winced.

He knew Ruth was watching him carefully and was less than surprised hear her speak softly, directly to him.

"Harry..."

"Yes, Ruth?" He looked up and saw Adam Carter come through the pods. "Adam, come most presently upon your hour. Everyone, I'd like to introduce you to your vagrant."

"Hi. How are you doing?" He smiled at them all. They stared at him. Harry tried not to be distracted by his accent. "This is Adam Carter. I've bulldozed some rules and seconded him from Six to help us sort out this mess." Pain shot up Harry's spine and he was forced to sit. Ruth was staring at him with a mixture of annoyance and concern, an expression he was very familiar with.

"Yeah. Well." Adam had obviously noticed that as well because he suddenly became a much more authoritative. "We've got one hell of a situation here. But there's a neat way to get the gremlins off our backs."

Zoë was hostile in her reply. "Oh yeah? What's that?"

But Adam didn't seem to take it personally. Instead, his eyes flickered from her to Harry. "We prove Tom Quinn was innocent." Harry raised his eyebrow but didn't say anything.

"Yes!" Danny exclaimed, seeming exceptionally happy with that suggestion.

The proposal had at least drawn Ruth's eyes away from him and back towards Adam; obviously she hadn't considered that option if her stunned expression was anything to go by.

Adam continued. "Now I'm sorry about this, but it looks we're in for an all-nighter. We need a heap of sandwiches, coffee, tea."

Sam stood up. "I'll get that. I mean I don't have to. I don't get the tea. Usually." She seemed slightly flustered.

"Thanks Sam, not still bugged?"

"What? Oh, no." Sam smiled before turning slightly red and moving away.

As the others did the same, Zoë spoke directly to Adam himself. "He wasn't innocent though, was he?" She made to move past him but Adam held her arm.

"Zoë, until we really know, let's assume that he was the man you knew," Adam told her before letting go and allowing her to leave.

They'd all left the immediate area bar three people.

"Interesting plan, Adam," Ruth commented, as he turned towards the both of them. "The only snag being that he tried to kill Harry."

"If he'd really wanted me dead he could have shot me in the head," Harry reminded her, grimacing in pain.

"Doesn't change the fact that he shot you," she told him. Her eyes were cold but the anger was directed at someone other than him, for once.

"Don't worry, I wont be forgetting it in a hurry," he stated, closing his eyes and breathing deeply.

"If you've got a better solution then I'd love to hear it, Ruth," Adam told her but she shook her head in reply. "Our first priority is the Section itself. We can worry about everything else after we've got the JIC off our backs."

Ruth nodded, reluctantly.

Adam lowered his voice and his expression changed to something more serious. "Fiona and I were sorry to hear about your son," Adam told them sincerely.

---

_1994.  
Christ Church.  
Oxford._

_Ruth had never been an observer of the human condition._

_It wasn't that she was anti-social or anything; it was simply the fact that there were much more interesting and important things to do than people-watch._

_She was always well liked but had never considered herself popular. She'd just never really understood people. They weren't like books; you couldn't read them in that way. You could never know everything about a person no matter how long you'd known them._

_Ruth had known Lucy for what she considered a 'long time'. When you live in each others pockets for years you get to know people well. But not completely._

_She'd had a slightly guilty feeling in her bones since the moment Lucy had said yes to Gary… because Ruth had never even considered that Lucy would choose Gary. Not when she had Justin, the perfect future husband, a man who'd inherit a trust fund to rival any as soon as he joined the family practice._

_But instead of the expected Justin and Lucy fanfare, her best friend had chosen Gary. A man who'd been sacked from his last job for trying to write about a holocaust survivor rather than the football results. A man who'd never have a steady job. Never make enough money to keep Lucy happy. _

_It was a cruel thing to say but Ruth had just assumed that it would never happen. Lucy's parents would surely never allow someone with the surname Hicks into their illustrious family without a six figure income. _

_Ruth had also assumed, back then, that Lucy would break things off and just carry on as usual. Gary would get over it and go down the pub before disappearing into Africa to write a book about the evils of globalisation. But that was looking less and less likely as they got to the 'I do' part._

_And they did._

_Ruth loved Lucy dearly but she had made the mistake of assuming that she also knew everything about her at the same time. _

_Ever since _he_ came into Ruth's life, ever since he walked out of it as well, she'd begun to notice things she'd never even thought about before. She'd selfishly assumed that she was better than her friend, arrogantly thought of herself as more intelligent, that she was a nicer person._

_But ever since Ruth had sat on a park bench and felt a cold hand grab tightly onto her arm - a hand that that still haunted her nightmares - ever since she'd touched his fingers and felt an electric current that she still dreamed about, she'd been different. _

_She'd begun to watch people. Notice things she'd never thought about before. Like the fact that, every Thursday, Lucy was busy at the same time and she'd always deflect any questions about it. Like the fact that she'd barely danced at her own hen party despite insisting on the club for that express reason. _

_Minor things out of context. After all, there was no law that said that Lucy always had to be the party animal and never settle down._

_But the problem was, Ruth knew better. _

_Less than an hour before the wedding itself she'd overheard the throwaway line that she'd normally never have picked up on. She'd never normally have even noticed that Justin Collins-Hume was even there, he was such a non-entity in her life._

_But she had. She'd overheard his words from across the room. _

"_And I thought it was her heart that was defective. Not her brain." He was drunk. But he was serious. _

_Everything had come together in her mind at that moment and she'd replayed it through the entire ceremony. Right to this moment when the happy couple were together. Forever._

_As she followed them down the aisle she could help but wonder two things. _

_Where was the confetti she'd bought especially?_

_And how short was their forever going to be?_

_--- _

_2003.__  
__Thames House.__  
__London._

"Do you have any kind of ... you know ... plan?" Danny asked, as they stood alone in the darkened corridor.

"I did something once, when I was stationed in Damascus. I made up a story about a high ranking intelligence officer in the Syrian Secret Service. The guy was a torturer, a real pig."

"So?"

Adam smirked. "I put it about that the pig was, well, mole Working for the Israeli secret service. And do you know what? It turned out to be true."

"What happened?"

"The Syrians hanged him. The Israelis went ape of course."

"And the agent?"

"I married her."

"Oh right."

"You'll meet her, she's gorgeous. See, don't plan too much Danny. Let things just crinkle out."

Danny just stared at him in disbelief.

"Look I'm not saying that it's always a good idea to go in half-cocked. But sometimes it's better to do the opposite." Danny didn't reply so he changed the subject completely. "What about the boss and his ex?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Adam smiled. "You know Harry Pearce is spy royalty and I've always wanted the meet the woman who could tame such a man."

"Tame?"

"God…" Adam chuckled. "Do you really not know the history? It's legend at Six."

"Why don't you tell me?"

"Why do you think Harry and Oliver hate each other?"

"Ruth said they were rivals."

"Exactly. Only Ruth was what they were rivals for. It's the most open secret in the business that Six tried to recruit her and then Harry swooped in."

"So what?"

"So… what's the lay of the land?"

"We have no idea."

Adam grinned. "And you people call yourselves spies?"

_--- _

_1994.__  
__Royal London Hospital.__  
__London._

"_You'll be out before the weekend apparently," his visitor stated, talking as if Harry hadn't been told that yet._

"_I know," he replied, staring at the grapes he'd just received. Obviously, Malcolm was attempting to offer him tea and sympathy._

_He'd clearly got the message because an uncomfortable silence was forming over them. _

_It wasn't that he disliked the man. He was tolerable. In small doses. But not at your hospital bedside when you're recovering from being shot - more than once - and apparently lucky to be alive. _

"_How was the funeral?" Harry asked him. It seemed like the polite thing to do._

"_The same as any. Depressing and upsetting. The children…" Malcolm shrugged. "How can you tell what five year olds are feeling? I'm appalling with children."_

"_I might go and see them when I'm out." He looked at Malcolm. "Unless you think that would be inappropriate?"_

"_How can it be inappropriate?"_

"_I lived, he died."_

"_That's the luck of the draw Harry. You know that." He paused. "Simon certainly did."_

"_Don't try the foolish platitudes."_

"_How many times did you save his life? There was always going to be a time when you couldn't. We understand the risks in this job. We do it anyway."_

_Harry said nothing._

"_Harry…"_

"_I'm tired Malcolm," he said forcefully. _

_Malcolm paused, choosing his words very carefully. "I checked on her for you." He said simply. "Just a quick look, she's fine. Might not finish her masters though. Asked for a deferral. Nothing of note otherwise." _

_Harry stared at him, keeping his expression passive, though he felt anything but at that moment._

"_Thank you for the information."_

"_Not a problem… I'll be sure to keep you informed if anything changes," he added._

"_I'd appreciate it very much Malcolm, but be tread carefully," he cautioned. _

"_I always do."_

---

_2003.  
The Club.  
London._

Harry moved with purpose towards the table that both Oliver and Jason Belling occupied.

Oliver smirked at him. "Ah Harry… good of you to join us. Do you know Jason Belling?" He gestured to his companion, who'd gone rather white at the unexpected interruption.

Harry smiled at the man. "Only on certain tape recordings." He and Oliver both laughed slightly. "Forgive us Mr Belling, Spook humour," he explained.

Oliver looked towards the man he'd been working with. "Convivial though this is, sadly Mr. Belling is not a member of this club. Nor is he my guest. Is he yours?"

"No." The smile left Harry face as he said so, calmly.

"So I think you had better leave," Oliver told him.

For a moment, Harry thought the stupid man was actually going to argue. But he obviously understood the statements and left quickly.

"You cut down one but another will pop up in his place, I fear."

"Indeed." Oliver nodded in agreement.

Harry looked at him. "You went over to them."

"Yes."

Harry shook his head, taking a deep breath to calm his nerves. "You damn well nearly landed us with a Ministry of Security running a secret police."

"I was ... perhaps somewhat blinded by ambition."

"_Somewhat_ blinded?" Harry stated, disbelieving.

"You can't force my resignation you know."

"Sadly I am aware of that fact."

There was a moment of silence before Oliver spoke again. "Ruth looks well. I was surprised to hear of her secondment."

"What of it?"

Oliver smirked. "I'd also heard about the divorce. You know if you need rid of her quickly there's always a place at Six…"

"Not going to happen Oliver," Harry interrupted.

"Shame." Oliver swirled his near empty glass before drinking the rest. "This is only a one all draw."

There was a moment before Harry turned to the waiter. "James, same again for Mr Mace and I'll have a large usual." He looked at Oliver. "Not on my tab."

---


End file.
